In the Dragon's Claws
by Elmethea
Summary: Ilayilia, the sister of Anduin, has taken his death and the death of her father without a tear. When a dragon sees her gift of song as a treasure he can take and own for himself, however, Ilayilia is sent on a journey to learn about her brother's death.
1. Prologue

A/N: This entire story probably makes more sense if you have read _Heir of Calenor_ first. This Prologue is taken almost directly from the Epilogue of that story.

**Prologue**

Ilayilia watched as the strange beings passed her. They were Elves, but not like the ones she knew. All of her days Ilayilia had resided beside the forests of the Wood-Elves, who were dark of hair and bright of smile. They were not wise, but they were a joyful race.

These Elves had light hair that framed severe faces. Like their woodland kindred, they had grey eyes, but these lacked the sparkle of the the Wood-Elves.

Ilayilia's eyes met those of the Elves' leader, a golden-haired man who was fairer than any being she had laid eyes on. The Elf shone with the brightness of the stars, but a sadness tainted his being.

The woman watched the strange, silent party leave the yard of her home before she ran to where Alenor, her father, sat on the porch. The old man had a crumpled, weathered look, a testimony to his life spent on the road.

"Father?" she asked, putting her arms gently around Alenor's frail body. "Who were those men?"

"Anduin... your brother..." Ilayilia gave a small start of surprise; her father had never mentioned his youngest child's name since he had cast the boy out of his presence. Ilayilia missed her only sibling dearly, as she missed being able to say his name without her father's face growing dark. She also missed (though she could never admit this to Alenor) spending summer evenings with the Wood-Elves under the stars. "He is dead."

"Dead?" Ilayilia cried softly. "How did this happen?" She looked after the Elves' retreating figures, wanting to run after them and ask about Anduin.

"Ilayilia, a darkness has come over me." Alenor's words stopped the woman and banished her desire to follow the Elves. She smoothed his grey, once pitch black, hair from his face. Alenor had once been a great man, a strong man. He had led the life of a drover, taking Ilayilia and her brother on drives along with their mother, Ilia, before she had died. Before he had banished Anduin.

"The blindness?" she asked. Alenor had been struck blind a few years ago while he was tending her house. Ilayilia had always felt somewhat responsible for that, though her father never would speak of what had happened. "Is it returning?"

Alenor shook his head and seized her hand roughly in his own, pressing something into her palm. Ilayilia opened her hand and saw two rings there. One was the golden seal of Calenor, given to Anduin by their father when he was a boy. The other ring, a silver band inset with a ruby gemstone, was a mystery to Ilayilia.

"Give these to your son," Alenor gasped, his eyes glazing over with a mist. "But do not leave until I am sleeping!" he added desperately. Ilayilia placed the rings in her pocket and cradled her father gently. As the hour passed, Alenor's breath rattled in his throat.

"I am sorry..." her father said, closing his eyes. "I couldn't see him... one last time." And then he sighed and the life left him.


	2. Birth from Death

**Birth from Death**

"Falkas!" Ilayilia whispered, waking her little son. The boy stirred, rustling the straw he dozed upon. "You're going to miss it!" she hissed, poking him gently.

"Is it happening?" Falkas cried, waking up suddenly. Ilayilia smiled and plucked a piece of hay from his black hair. They boy had fallen asleep in the stables, failing miserably to keep vigil over one of Ilayilia's mares.

The mother stood and moved to the door of the stall. Falkas clambered unto a crate beside her and looked down at the little pony who lay inside. Alfirin was close now, and she lay on her side panting slightly.

"Look!" Ilayilia whispered. "You can see the hooves!" Falkas gaped down at the tiny hooves Alfirin was pushing from her body. Ilayilia smiled at her son's reaction; Falkas had been waiting to see a mare giving birth for weeks now. But then her smile turned into a frown as she watched Alfirin struggle, and Ilayilia opened the latch of the stall and went inside.

"Man rhoeg?" (_What's wrong?_) she asked the pony, for Ilayilia and her son were the descendants of Calenor and could speak with horses. But Alfirin gave a high-pitched neigh, the whites of her eyes showing.

"Falkas, go and fetch your father," Ilayilia commanded. The boy's blue eyes widened and he scampered out of the barn and to their home. "Shh, sedho si," (_Shh, be still now_) Ilayilia tried to comfort Alfirin, but the pony tried to lift her head and look at her foal.

Falkas returned shortly, dragging his father by the hand behind him. Kalkas took one look at the frightened mare and joined his wife kneeling in the straw.

"What's wrong?" he asked, running his hands over the pony's heaving sides.

"The foal is too big!" Ilayilia whispered. She turned and saw Falkas standing in the door of the stall. "Go inside," she told him.

"But you said I could..."

"Go inside!" Ilayilia ordered.

"We need hot water and towels," Kalkas began, rising to his feet. Alfirin moaned slightly and let her head fall back into the straw. Ilayilia touched the mare's neck and shook her head.

"It's too late," she told her husband.

"We can still save the foal," Kalkas insisted, going to fetch clean towels. Alfirin had managed to push most of her foal out before she died. Ilayilia pushed back her long woolen sleeves and began to gently pull until the hips and rear legs of the foal were also lying on the ground. She waited, biting her lip nervously, for Kalkas to return.

When her husband came back, he found Ilayilia gently tapping out the time on her knee with her fingers.

"How much longer?" he asked, putting down the stack of towels. Ilayilia shook her head and drummed her fingers a final time.

"Now," she told him. Kalkas took a small knife and sliced through the umbilical cord. Ilayilia took a towel and began to clean the foal gently.

"A colt," she told Kalkas softly, drying off the foal. It was too large, and its head was slighter than it should have been. Ilayilia examined it for any hurts, tenderly wiping off its white fur and cleaning its short grey mane and tail.

"It looks like a horse sired it," she said as the foal pulled away and tried to stand. Its thin little legs shook slightly and the foal sank onto the straw.

"A horse?" Kalkas asked. "How is that possible?" Ilayilia shrugged; she controlled breeding so tightly that it was a complete mystery to her as to how her mare had come in contact with a horse.

Later that night Falkas crept back out to the barn and watched his mother feeding the new-born foal with a little bottle.

"What's his name?" the boy asked curiously.

"I was thinking... Brassen."

"White," Falkas translated, chewing his lip. "Well, okay." The child climbed into the stall and sat beside his mother. After a moment of watching the little foal suckle, Falkas put a hand on Ilayilia's arm.

"I'm sorry about Alfirin," he told his mother softly. Ilayilia pushed back sudden tears; she always endeavored to never cry. The buckskin mare had been her most treasured horse, the pony Ilayilia herself rode upon errands.

"She gave her life for this little one," Ilayilia said, gently plucking the foal's grey mane. "So I need to look after him. Will you help me?"

"Really?" Falkas's blue eyes, her own eyes, opened wide with delight.

"Shh," she scolded him, lightly cuffing the back of his head. The foal had curled up in her lap and fallen asleep with a huge yawn.

A/N: What do you think so far? Review, please!


	3. Stories of Dragons

**Stories of Dragons**

Spring had come early, and now green shoots were pushing their way up through the melting frost. Ilayilia sat on a fence with Falkas and taught her son how to braid rope. The child's face fell as every attempt he made twisted apart into loose strands. But his mother only laughed and, placing her hands on his, began to skillfully braid the fibers together.

"Don't get frustrated," she told him. "Just take a deep breath and do this." Ilayilia gave the end of the rope an expert twirl and the fibers clung together. Falkas sighed and fiddled with the rings his mother had given him.

"Why is everything so hard?" he asked, turning the large golden ring around his thumb.

"Because that is the way of the world," his mother sighed. Sometimes Falkas asked her such hard questions, like why horses had to die and where did foals come from. "We must work hard in order to live."

"But they don't work hardly at all!" Falkas pointed a finger at a little flock of sparrows nearby. The little brown birds were pecking through the early spring grass.

"Of course they have to work hard," Ilayilia told him, picking up another length of rope. "They just work differently than we do."

"Well, maybe they just work better than we do," Falkas grumbled.

"If you could live off worms," his mother told him, watching as another bit of rope fell apart in his hands. "Than you could live like the sparrows." Falkas seemed to mull this over, craning his neck to watch wisps of clouds scuttle across the blue sky.

"Emil," (_Mother_) he asked at last. "Why can't we fly?"

"Because we don't have wings."

"Why?" Ilayilia sighed and put aside her rope.

"Because Manwe the Almighty decreed that birds should have wings, but not humans," she tried to explain.

"And dragons," Falkas said brightly.

"And dragons," she admitted. "But if you want to fly, go and find Maple and take her for a gallop." Falkas brightened and scampered off, leaving his mother to collect the little bits of fiber he left behind. Falkas loved the little bay pony Ilayilia had given him for his last birthday, when he had turned seven. She had tried to tell him the rings she had given him were more important, but Falkas still loved Maple more than anything.

Ilayilia began to sing softly to herself as she went into the stables. She stopped and stroked Brassen's neck. The little foal was tottering about fairly well now, and he was taller and slighter than the other foals born that winter.

"Ai ada?" (_Who's your father?_) she asked him, not for the first time. Brassen just whinnied and lent against her legs.

That night Falkas climbed onto his mother's lap and begged her for a song. Ilayilia was a beautiful singer, something that had first caught Kalkas's eye. As a young man he had been fairly wealthy, a noble of Brethil, but he had fallen for the horse farmer's daughter and her sweet voice.

"What do you want to hear?" Ilayilia asked her son as Kalkas stirred the fire. She had been so fortunate to find a man willing to invest his money in the Wild Breed of ponies, the Rhaw Nur as the Elves called them.

"Something about heros and dragons!"

"Dragons?" Kalkas asked, sitting down in his chair next to the fire. "Why would you want to hear about those monsters?"

"Someone in town mentioned them," Falkas said brightly. The child had ridden into town and bought some bread and cheese during his afternoon jaunt on Maple.

"That's right," his father told him sternly. "There's a dragon poking about the hills, so mind you don't go too far from home until it's gone." Falkas's face fell slightly, but Ilayilia began to rock him gently and sing softly.

"One day as I walked beside the mountains so tall I saw the strangest of sights

Upon the hilltops in fine silver armor with a red plume in his helm came a knight

He had a black cape thrown over his shoulder and a long spear in one hand

His horse it was white and his shield it was bright as he faced the bane of Beleriand.

A dragon fierce, with yellow scales thick, looked over the knight from above

He had huge amber wings and long curving claws and a tail with which to shove

The creature's teeth were wicked and its eyes were vile as he surveyed the man

All through the land was whispered the duel of the knight and the bane of Beleriand.

The knight did charge with flashing spear and took the dragon by surprise

But the creature returned with a plume of fire that burned the very sunrise.

The hero lifted his shield to shelter his horse, who shied not at his rider's command

And the steed stood firm as he was engulfed by the flames of the bane of Beleriand.

The fire hit the silver shield and was blocked to the left and then to the right

And the knight he threw his flashing spear at the dragon with all of his might

As the dragon fell to the ground his dying screams shook all of the land

The victorious knight shone as he stood above the corpse of the bane of Beleriand.

All this I saw and more, 'tis true, as I walked beside the high mountains

I saw the dragon's dying throes and its blood poisoning crystal fountains

So rejoice all you people, for I swear it is so by raising my own right hand

The knight turned away and rode away, leaving the bane of Beleriand."

Falkas had fallen asleep, lulled by the sound of his mother's voice. Kalkas came and took the child from Ilayilia's arms. He carried the boy to his bedroom and returned to see that his wife was asleep in her chair. Kalkas smiled and covered her with a blanket before blowing out the lamp.

A/N: Yes, I know it's slow. How did you like the prose? I actually made an effort and wrote it myself this time. Bizarrely, according to the rules of copyright I am forced to learn in computer class, that makes "The Bane of Beleriand" copyrighted. Strange, it's true, but its now officially mine.


	4. Captured

A/N: Yet again, the song is written by me. Any suggestions on a title for it?

**Captured**

The years passed, but still the dragon would not leave the hills. The people of Brethil were worried, and Ilayilia and her family soon found it impossible to go into town. Finally Kalkas went out alone to try to and reach his father and find some hired men to protect their barn. Ilayilia was left alone with Falkas, who was about ten by now.

"Be careful," Kalkas had warned her before her left. "We don't know what the dragon wants, so stay close to home."

"You be careful, too," Ilayilia had said, kissing him and causing Falkas to mime puking. Over a week had passed, and still no news of her husband. But Ilayilia was not very worried yet, for Kalkas's father lived fairly far south and it would take him almost a week to get there, let alone return.

Brassen had grown over the years. He was a fine young colt and practically towered over the shaggy Rhaw Nur. Ilayilia was out in the fields with him almost everyday, training him on a long lead rope.

After one such training session, Ilayilia led Brassen back to the barn and gave him fresh water and oats. The sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon as she came out of the barn. Ilayilia walked around the barn once, making sure all of the doors and windows were secure. As she did she hummed to herself, then began to sing.

"The snow fell all around

As I walked into Savorntown

And though I know the snow will go

I've seen springtime flowers grow

For seasons come and seasons change

And blossoms follow snow.

The rain fell all around

As I departed Savorntown

And though I know the rain will fall

I have heard the blackbird's call

For seasons come and seasons change

And harvest time follows rain

The leaves fell all around

As I came to my home

And though I know the leaves will go

I still look for winter snow

For seasons come and seasons change

And snow will blanket the field."

When she finished, Ilayilia felt something was wrong. It was too quiet, and all of the birds had stopped singing. Inside the stables, the ponies were whinnying nervously, and she could hear them moving restlessly.

Ilayilia went to the front of the stable to check on the ponies one last time when she heard the steady thump of wings and felt the gusts of winds stirred up. The woman turned and screamed as a large black shape blocked out the sky. The ponies also screamed, running around the barn and kicking at the doors of the stalls.

Hot black claws closed around Ilayilia's waist and she fainted from fear as she was lifted into the air.


	5. Meeting Glarlauk

**Meeting Glarlauk**

Ilayilia woke on a hard, cold floor. It was dark, like a night without stars, and she trembled violently in the cold.

"You're awake." Ilayilia gave a small cry of fear as the voice rumbled out of the dark.

"Who are you?" she demanded, scooting backwards until she felt the wall at her back.

"My name is Glarlauk." There was a pause, and Ilayilia realized that the voice was waiting for her to respond.

"I'm Ilayilia," she said, her hand fumbling around to find something to use as a weapon. She could see a glimmer of stars nearby, but also a large shape that stood between them and her.

"Ilayilia," the voice rumbled, tasting the name. "I like it."

"Are you... are you the dragon?" Ilayilia asked, standing tremulously and eyeing the distance between herself and the stars.

"_The_ dragon?" the voice asked and the form shifted to reveal more stars. "I am_ a_ dragon." Ilayilia leapt forward, running towards the bright stars. A hot wind rushed past her face as she ran around the dragon's shadowy form.

Suddenly Ilayilia ran into something thick and heavy that knocked the wind out of her and forced her to sit abruptly. The dragon had moved its tail to block her escape.

"Careful," Glarlauk told her, moving his thick black tail aside and revealing a sharp drop. Outside, Ilayilia could just make out the outlines of the Misty Mountains and the rolling hills of Brethil, her homeland.

"Are you going to eat me?" Ilayilia asked, trembling slightly and trying to make herself as small as possible.

"No." Glarlauk's short answer surprised her.

"Why?" Perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing to question why a dragon wouldn't eat her, but Ilayilia was curious.

"I like beautiful things." Glarlauk's reply made her blush and she was grateful for the darkness. "And your voice is very beautiful. I searched long to find you."

"You were... looking for me?" Ilayilia asked, amazed and slightly flattered in spite of her better instincts. "All these years?"

"Yes." Ilayilia stood and walked away from Glarlauk, back into the cave. She tripped over something and stumbled.

"Careful!" the dragon hissed, shifting with a rasp of scales on stone. She saw the silhouette of his giant head turn and look at her. Ilayilia tried again, but something else caught her foot. Finally she sat down and tried to peer at her surroundings through the darkness. Glarlauk spoke no more that night and she strongly suspected he had gone to sleep. Ilayilia couldn't have slept if she wanted to, but she watched at the stars faded into the grey of morning and a bright sun rose behind the distant mountains.

Ilayilia watched as the sun bathed the dragon's form and she saw her captor for the first time. Glarlauk was black, as dark as a crow's wing. He was large, so that Ilayilia was barely as tall as his head, and his spine was ridged with razor sharp spikes. Glarlauk's tail was the same length as his body and the dragon had curled it around him as a sleeping cat might. His leathery black wings were folded neatly by his side.

The sun also lit up the cave they were in, revealing massive piles of golden treasure. Ilayilia sat at the edge of one of these, and it was easily the size of a hillock. She stood carefully, trying not to disturb any of the gold as she walked toward the entrance of the cave.

There was a small ledge outside and a stream poured down into a pool in this before tumbling over a steep waterfall and vanishing below. Ilayilia saw that the dragon's tail had saved her last night, for the ledge ended in a steep cliff with jagged rocks far below.

"Where am I?" Ilayilia asked herself softly.

"This is my home." The woman started when Glarlauk answered her. "It is in the mountains of Nargothrond." The dragon surveyed her with a dark green eye. Ilayilia looked down at her brown woolen dress as a flush rose up her cheeks. She was painfully aware of her appearance, especially from someone who claimed to value beautiful things.

Ilayilia had long, straight black hair and dark blue eyes. She was slight, having only borne one child, and her skin was pale and fair.

"Are you hungry?" Glarlauk asked, startling her.

"Um, yes..."

"I'm going hunting."

"I don't think..." Ilayilia's voice trailed off as the dragon spread its huge wings, leapt from the ledge, and soared into the air. "... that I'll like what you eat," she finished, watching the dragon turn and, with a mighty flap of its wings, fly around the mountain and out of sight.

Ilayilia turned her attention back to the cliff, her blue eyes desperately searching for a way down. But everywhere the rock fell away smoothly, giving her no chance of escape. She turned and looked up, but it was the same above. Glarlauk had built his lair straight into the side of a cliff, accessible only by flight.

The woman sighed and went to the little stream. Cupping water in her hands she drank gratefully and washed her face.

The steady flap of wings alerted her to the dragon's return and Glarlauk swooped in to land on the ledge, the carcass of a deer clutched in one claw.

"Here, this is for you." Ilayilia turned away at the raw meat and closed her eyes, fighting down the desire to vomit. "What's wrong?" Glarlauk asked, sniffing the deer and turning it over.

"It's, um... well, humans don't eat..." Ilayilia tried to explain.

"Oh, I understand." Glarlauk spat fire over the deer and began to slowly roast it. When he had finished he looked up expectantly. "Is that better?"

"Um, yes. Thank you," Ilayilia could still not bring herself to approach the offered meal, but sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. Glarlauk also sat down at the far end of the ledge, his tail hanging down the cliff.

They sat like that for a while, looking over each other.

"Why did you bring me here?" Ilayilia asked again.

"I like the sound of your voice," Glarlauk told her patiently.

"But I want to go home!"

"You are mine, now," Glarlauk said.

"A human is not some golden goblet!" Ilayilia fumed, aware that she was attempting to glare down a dragon. "You cannot simply claim them!"

"Why not?" The dragon tilted its head and looked at her. Ilayilia glared back, then blinked as she realized something.

"Your eyes..."

"What about them?"

"They are blue!" Glarlauk delicately picked up a bronze shield in his claws and examined his reflection.

"So they are," he said with an elegant shrug of his wings, placing the shield back on the pile.

"But they were green!"

"Were they?" Ilayilia nodded, certain that when the dragon had woken its eyes had been a deep, forest green but now they were sky blue. "Interesting," Glarlauk mused, lifting a claw to pick something from his fangs.

"Let me go!" Ilayilia shouted, tired of the dragon's games.

"I don't want to," Glarlauk replied, turning and going into his cave. The dragon delicately raked his golden store together and then sprawled on top of it. Ilayilia, not knowing what else to do, followed him. "Sing for me," the dragon ordered. The woman crossed her arms and stamped her foot.

"No."

"Yes."

"NO!" she yelled. "I don't want to sing for you, I want you to take me home!" Glarlauk's eyes shifted color again, going from sky blue to a muddy purple and into a deep burgundy.

"Sing for me!" Glarlauk growled, and Ilayilia saw fire rising in his throat.

"I don't want to," she held her ground firmly. The dragon's eyes flashed red for a second, then he turned his head away with a low growl.

"Fine!" he snapped. "Find your own way home!" Ilayilia gave a small growl of her own and stomped off to a far corner of the cave where she slouched down and picked at the hem of her dress.


	6. Which Concerns Singing and GiftGiving

A/N: So the song is "Come Home", by moi.

**Which Concerns Singing and Gift-Giving**

Glarlauk fumed on his golden pile, his hot breath causing some of the gold to melt slightly. He snarled and nestled deeper into the treasure, closing his eyes and trying to sleep.

Ilayilia watched him settle and his breath become cool and slow. When she was certain he was asleep, the woman began to sing softly for herself. Over her childhood, she had found that singing could keep her from tears. After Anduin had left, Ilayilia knew she could not cry in front of her father, so she would sing and let her own voice comfort her.

"The wind she whispers and she calls on out to me

And the wind she whistles as she moves through the trees

She sings among the high mountains,

She sighs over the low dales

Singing: come home, come home, come.

The wind she wails though the narrow canyons tall

And the wind she rattles though autumn's faded orange leaves

And she spreads her wings of morning

Like a golden canopy

Singing: come home, come home, come.

And I know she's waiting out there, somewhere for me

And I know that she's weeping for faithless little me

She will cry along the rivers

She will sob beside the streams

Singing: come home, come home, come."

Ilayilia sang under her breath, careful not to wake the sleeping dragon with her voice. She did not want him to think she had given in. Glarlauk slept through the day and into the early evening, leaving the woman to her own thoughts. Finally the dragon woke with a stretch and a yawn. Ilayilia watched and found she was reminded of a cat. The comparison between the huge black dragon and a small barn cat was almost comical.

"Are you laughing at me?" Glarlauk asked, looking over at her with navy blue eyes.

"No," she giggled.

"Hmph," the dragon huffed, looking over himself carefully. When he was satisfied that his appearance was exactly as he wanted he looked out at the setting sun. "You didn't eat," he noted dryly, shaking out his wings.

"I didn't feel like it," Ilayilia replied. Glarlauk surveyed her with one dark blue eye and snorted.

"I'm going hunting," the dragon told her. "Stay."

"As if I could do anything else!" she scoffed. But when Glarlauk's large black body flew away, Ilayilia found that she was lonely and bored. She briefly considered looking over the dragon's treasure, then shuddered when she remember tales of dragon's possessiveness.

So Ilayilia sat back and waited for an hour. Then another. She remembered that in the morning the dragon had returned after barely fifteen minutes. Ilayilia began to panic: what if Glarlauk never returned? She would die up here and no one would know!

But then the steady flap of wings put her mind at rest and the dragon landed neatly on the ledge. He was carrying something in one of his claws and he placed this gently on the ground.

"I brought you some dinner," he rumbled, looking very pleased with himself. Ilayilia looked at what Glarlauk had brought her. It was a wicker hamper and when she opened it the woman was amazed to find an entire picnic inside.

"How did you get this?" she asked in amazement, lifting out an entire wheel of cheese. Ilayilia looked up at the dragon who shrugged nonchalantly.

"I hunted." Her stomach dropped and she released the cheese with a disgusted gasp. The woman glared up at Glarlauk and crossed her arms. The dragon looked back, his eyes yellow and confused.

"I don't feel like eating," Ilayilia said again, closing the hamper and moving away from it.

"I don't understand," the dragon confessed, sniffing the basket. "Isn't this what humans eat?"

"Yes," she said, turning away firmly. Glarlauk sighed and twitched his tail, sending the hamper and the deer over the side of the cliff.

"Humans," the dragon grumbled to himself, picking through his treasure.

"Dragons," Ilayilia retorted, walking out onto the ledge to watch the stars rise.

Glarlauk growled, then turned away with a snort and picked at a torn shirt of Mithril. He wondered if the two-leg could be won over with trinkets of affection, much as a female dragon would be. So he began to sort through his gold, setting aside swords and armor and examining jewels and necklaces with great care. Finally he turned back to Ilayilia and slithered onto the floor of the cave. He had a golden band tangled in his long claw.

Sitting back on his haunches the dragon offered Ilayilia the piece of treasure. The woman hesitated, then took the gold from him.

It was a headpiece, such as the great Elven ladies wore, with a golden tiara and thin chains falling from it. Gingerly the woman examined it, then held it out for Glarlauk.

"It's a gift," the dragon rumbled. Ilayilia stared up at him in surprise.

"Your eyes are gold now," she noted, blushing slightly. She ran her fingers along the precious metal and whispered, "Thank you." The woman draped the headpiece over her head, its chain veil tumbled over her hair in waves.


	7. Which Concerns the Song of Morag

A/N: The song is "The Song of Morag" by, guess who! (P.S., if you didn't guess Elmethea, you were wrong.)

**Which Concerns the Song of Morag**

The next day Glarlauk brought Ilayilia a fine lady's dress, made of green velvet with bright copper embroidery. At first, the woman refused it, believing its previous owner to be dead, but the dragon told her he had simply stolen it from a merchant's caravan.

The copper threads twisted and formed little birds that sang at clear fountains while leaves fell between them.

"It is beautiful," she told Glarlauk earnestly.

"So is your voice," the dragon tried again.

"If I sing for you," Ilayilia said tentatively. "Will you take me home?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe isn't good enough!"

"Neither is if." The two glared at each other for a moment and she had half a mind to throw the dress off the cliff. Finally the woman sighed and draped the gown over her arm.

"I suppose you are right," she told the dragon, whose eyes brightened up hopefully. "Not now," Ilayilia sighed. "Go away, please. I want to bathe and change."

Glarlauk released a burning sigh and flew away over the hills, leaving her alone. Ilayilia waited until she was sure that the dragon was gone before she undid her plain woolen gown.

She sponged the dirt off of her skin as best as she could, wetting her old brown dress at the stream and wiping the grime from her skin. Ilayilia knew her black hair was hopeless tangle, so she didn't bother with it. Using the dry parts of her old dress she patted herself dry and then slipped into the green velvet gown.

The soft fabric slid against her skin smoothly. Ilayilia traced its fine embroidery wonderingly, her fingers light against the metallic threads.

When Glarlauk returned he found the woman waiting for him, her pale skin shining softly and the folds of the green dress falling gracefully around her body.

"Sing," the dragon commanded as soon as he sat down. Ilayilia's eyes flashed for a moment and she crossed her arms. Glarlauk thought carefully for a moment then added a soft, "Please?"

Ilayilia stared up in wonder. The dragon looked down at her with a mixture of hope and anticipation.

"Well, I did promise," she sighed.

"Sit close by the fire, my child, look up at the stars and see

The horse of the legends, proudest stallion of all

Galloping in a starry sea.

His name is Morag, my child, and his coat shines with silver

There are bright moonbeams caught in his tail and mane

And his eye is the brightest star.

Morag was a stallion, my child, back in the ancient days

Now he runs across the midnight sky under the moon

Fleeing the rising of the sun.

Morag tried to fly, my child, to chase the stars in the sky

He fell off the mountain and shattered his legs on the stone

Chasing the stars of Fair Varda

Varda pitied him, my child, she took his soul in her hand

She hung it in the night sky to fly with the stars again

Under a sailor's yellow moon."

Glarlauk listened, his eyes closed and head swaying slightly. When Ilayilia finished her song, the dragon opened one light green eye and looked over at the woman.

"Another," he commanded. Ilayilia turned and tossed her black hair over her shoulder, blue eyes flashing defiantly.

"No." Glarlauk's eyes flashed red for a second before he closed them and turned away.

"Sleep, please," he said. The dragon nestled down into the pile of gold, treating the bright metal as if it were soft bedding. Ilayilia tried to make herself comfortable on the floor, but the stone was cold and hard.


	8. Griffin Feathers

**Griffin Feathers**

Glarlauk was gone when Ilayilia woke the next morning. She was amazed she had not heard him leave, for the woman had slept little and fitfully throughout the night.

She went to the ledge and drank a little water there. Ilayilia examined the course of the stream, hoping to find a gentler descent than the sharp cliff face. When that search yielded no promising results, she looked over the hills and tried to see her homestead tucked away in them.

The dragon returned, something large in his claws and evidently heavy, for he flew slower and more laboriously.

As he came closer, Ilayilia saw that Glarlauk was bringing back an entire wagon. She had to scrambled back into the cave because there was no room for her, the wagon, and a dragon on the ledge.

Glarlauk leaned down and looked at Ilayilia. "I brought you presents!" he said, delightedly.

"How did you...?"

"I stole it," the dragon.

"Did anyone get hurt?" Ilayilia demanded.

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"I can't lie." The woman blinked at this new revelation.

"Really? Dragon's can't lie?"

"Of course they can," Glarlauk scoffed. "I can't." He pushed his way into the cave and began to sort through one of the smaller piles of treasure. Finally he pulled out a tunic that was covered in gold feathers.

"Griffin feathers," the dragon told her, giving her the tunic. "They make it impossible for anyone near to lie."

"A useful garment," Ilayilia mused.

"Do you like it?"

"Well, yes..."

"Keep it. A gift from me to you," Glarlauk told her. The woman blinked at the dragon's generosity. "A judge wore it once," he told her.

"What happened to him?" The dragon looked at her and cocked his head slightly. "Oh."

"Look at what I brought!" he insisted, pushing the covered wagon towards her. Ilayilia smiled slightly; Glarlauk's enthusiasm reminded her of Falkas when the boy brought back flowers and blue jay feathers for her.

Ilayilia climbed into the wagon and saw that it must have belonged to a rich merchant. Two heavy, thick carpets were rolled up and laid on the floor to keep them out of the way. There were also three large trunks. One contained fine gowns, with pearls and precious gems sewn into the silk and velvet. Another was stuffed with ladies personal items, like a gilt mirror and ivory comb. The last trunk had more fabric, in all manner of rich hues. There was also a light, straight backed armchair and a small, shell encrusted table.

"Glarlauk," the woman said, emerging from the wagon and looking up at the dragon. "It is too much! I cannot accept all your gifts!"

"I like pretty things," the dragon told her, his eyes bright yellow. "So it is a gift to me as well as you." Then Glarlauk had her bring out the contents of the chest for him to see. He seemed delighted by a blue gown that had creamy pearls folded into its silk folds.

"That one will look good with your eyes," the dragon told her. "Very beautiful." Ilayilia blushed and looked down in embarrassment.


	9. Which Concerns Families

A/N: Yet again, I am at a loss to name this song. Suggestions?

**Which Concerns Families**

Over the next week, Ilayilia made herself a room in the wagon. Glarlauk had easily pushed it to the side of his cave where it sat on splintered axes. The woman unrolled the carpets and used them as a bedroll, sleeping soundly on the thick patterned fabric. The dragon's eyes lit up and would change colors into a light green (his expression of pleasure and happiness) whenever Ilayilia wore a different dress. The blue dress was still his favorite, but there was also a red gown with emeralds, a silver gown with sapphires, and a purple gown with amethysts.

Ilayilia found a total of five sewing kits among the second chest and with these she altered the dresses (all of which were just a little too large for her in some areas) and made a thick cloak out of the extra fabric.

In return, Ilayilia would sing for Glarlauk and the dragon would sit perfectly still to listen. He never again demanded she sing for him, nor did he forget to thank her when she did sing.

Over the weeks, Glarlauk and Ilayilia found that a certain level of trust had developed between the two of them, if not mutual fondness. The woman came to realize that Glarlauk was actually very tender, if not a little vain and spoiled. He would search far and wide to bring her "human food". Conversely, Glarlauk grew to feel protective and concerned for his latest treasure. She was so very frail and small compared to him, but possessed a fierce attitude and stubborn disposition.

One morning, when Ilayilia thought that Glarlauk was sleeping, she went out to the ledge and sat with her legs dangling over its side. A warm breeze stirred the trees below and a little bluebird swooped through it. Summer had come close on the heels of a chilly spring. Watching the little bluebird, Ilayilia began to compose a song of her own and sing to the bird.

"Little bird that flies so high, please come down to me

Little bird that flies so high, tell me what you see.

Do you see the mountains tall?

Do you see the waterfall?

Or do you see my own true love

From your perch high above?

I do see the mountains tall

And I see the waterfall

But I see not your own true love

From my perch high above.

Little bird that flies so high, tell me what you see

Little bird that flies so high, have you seen my baby?

Did you see the river running?

Did you see the fox so cunning?

Or did you see my small baby

Who was taken from me?

I saw the river running

I saw the fox so cunning

And as I flew over this land

I saw a handsome man

He had hair as dark as the black night

And eyes of brightest blue

My fair maiden I tell you right

He looked a lot like you."

"Did you make that up?" Glarlauk asked softly. Ilayilia started, for she hadn't realized the dragon had woken. The dragon tended to sleep for many hours, waking only to hunt, much like a cat.

"Yes," the woman answered, turning to look back over the distant hills of Brethil.

"Do you... miss them?"

"Don't you have a family?" Ilayilia sighed.

"I don't know them," Glarlauk answered, crawling out onto the ledge and lying beside her. Ilayilia hesitated, then leant against the dragon's side. He was warm and his scales were hard, but Glarlauk was a comforting presence.

"Wasn't your mother there when you hatched?"

"No," Glarlauk told her. "But I was born into the very cave. Dragons are fewer now, fewer than they once were. They have been killed off."

"By heros?" Ilayilia asked, remembering the Bane of Beleriand.

"I don't think of them as such," Glarlauk snorted. The woman smiled and raised a hand to hesitantly pet the dragon's huge cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were like molten gold (meaning the dragon was calm and content). "Some were killed by Men, yes, like Smaug the Golden who lived in the Land of the Rising Sun. Some were killed by rival dragons."

"I am sorry," she told Glarlauk, and of course it was the truth for not even she could lie with the Griffin Tunic nearby.

"Please, tell me about your family," Glarlauk requested, closing his eye as Ilayilia stroked the scales underneath it.

So Ilayilia began with the story of Calenor and told the dragon of her family. Of the capture and taming of Uricon the Merka Fea. Of the tragic deaths of Ephrin and Ethrin, her uncles, while they were riding on a drive. And finally she told him of her father who had wasted away and the mystery of her brother's death.

"You say the Elves would know of him?" Glarlauk asked, his eyes a dark indigo. Ilayilia could identify the dragon's mood based on his eyes most of the time, but this purplish blue was new.

"Well, they might," she corrected him. "But I suppose I will never know." Glarlauk went quiet, and he was very silent for the next few hours, speaking rarely and in short sentences.


	10. The Dragon's Offer

A/N: The song "Birds of the Night" is copyrighted by me. No stealing!

**The Dragon's Offer**

"You are sad," Glarlauk said the next morning. His eyes were dark green, thoughtful, as opposed to yellow, questioning, so Ilayilia knew that he was making an observation.

"You may not have known your family," she told him with a sigh. "But I miss mine. I miss my people, the Rhaw Nur. I miss Brassen as much as I miss my son."

"Will you be happier if you knew how your brother died?" Ilayilia looked up sharply from her sewing.

"What are you saying?"

"If I could help you talk to the Elves..." Glarlauk said slowly. "Will you not miss your family so much?"

"I will always miss them as long as I am separated from them," she replied tentatively. "But yes, I would like to speak to the Elves and learn what fate befell Anduin." Glarlauk fell silent again, his eyes darkening into the same deep indigo she had seen once before. Finally the dragon nodded.

"You have pleased me more than gold," he said at last. "I will do this for you. We are..." The dragon frowned, searching for the right word. "Companions...?" Ilayilia placed a gentle hand on the dragon's head and looked up into his purple eyes.

"I think you mean friends," she told him softly. But Glarlauk shook his head and arched his neck so that his head brushed the ceiling of the cave.

"The doe should be careful," he told Ilayilia, his eyes a deep purple, and the woman recognized that he was troubled. "If it lives with the wolf. We are not friends, but we have found a way to live side by side."

"I suppose you are right," Ilayilia sighed. "For though I am fond of you and I care about you, I do not love you. And you do not love me." The two of them sat together for a while, watching the sky grow dark and listening a the nightingale's song replaced the lark's.

"Sing nightingale, sing!

Sing your melody

Laugh at the darkness

And take to the wing!

Sing nightingale, sing!

Make your little nest

Greet the sweet evening

Bright harmonies sing!

Trill mourning dove, trill!

Say farewell to day

The night is falling

Dusk comes to the hills!

Trill mourning dove, trill!

Call to the robin

Wake up the owl

And the whip-poor-will!

All birds of the night

Raise up your voices

Sing the evening's hymns

Goodbye to the light!"

"Thank you," Glarlauk said as Ilayilia finished her song. "Tomorrow you should pack. We will leave when you are ready."


	11. Starting on a Journey

**Starting on a Journey**

The brown dress she had first been wearing when Glarlauk took her had large tears and rips in it, but Ilayilia salvaged enough of the fabric to make a small pack. Into this she placed the ivory comb, one of the sewing kits, two of the dresses (including the blue Glarlauk was so fond of), and a few other bits.

She wore the Griffin Tunic, its plain undyed cloth shimmering under the golden feathers, and a pair of breeches she had sewn. She also wore the golden headpiece that had been Glarlauk's first gift to her. It was the third day since Glarlauk had offered to take her, but the woman had rushed for she feared the dragon might change his mind.

There was no question of Ilayilia riding Glarlauk for the sharps spines on his back would have sliced her legs easily. Instead the dragon cradled her body in one of his front claws.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Ilayilia had asked when Glarlauk first suggested it.

"Safer than anywhere else," the dragon had shrugged. So she climbed into his claws and huddled there, her thick cloak wrapped around her.

"Don't be afraid," the dragon told her, his eyes sparkling with amused blue. "I do this everyday."

"If Manwe intended for humans to fly he would have given us wings," she retorted, but when Glarlauk's claws closed over her she felt secure and unworried. Until the dragon took off, however.

Seeing the ground whip beneath her was more unnerving than anything Ilayilia had experience. She clutched one of Glarlauk's claws desperately as they flew over the tops of the trees. The woman was vaguely aware that she was screaming.

Kalkas cursed and dismounted, dragging Brassen into the cover of the trees as the black dragon swooped overhead. The horse whinnied nervously and pawed the ground, threatening to bolt in fear.

"Steady!" Kalkas murmured to the horse, but he did not have his wife's or even his son's way with the horses. As the dragon flew above him, though, Kalkas could hear someone screaming in fear.

"Ilayilia!" the man shouted, running after the dragon's retreating figure. "Ilayilia!" The beast turned and looked at Kalkas over its shoulder with a large burgundy eye. The dragon banked to the left and turned back towards the man. Kalkas fumbled, trying to draw his sword, but then beat a hasty retreat as the dragon spat flames at him.

Turning back to the South, the dragon flapped its powerful wings and vanished over the trees. Kalkas cursed after it, stamping out the hem of his robes which had caught on fire.

The man had spent weeks tracking the black dragon and figuring out where its lair was. And now it was leaving, and taking Ilayilia away a captive! Brassen neighed worriedly and tossed his long grey mane.

"We'll find her," Kalkas swore to the horse. "And we'll kill the dragon that took her!" Brassen snorted in what the man could only assume was agreement.

When Kalkas had returned home that spring he had found his son alone and quite upset. It had taken all of the father's patience to calm the boy down enough for him to babble out the full story.

After that Kalkas had immediately taken all of the men his father lent him and scoured the countryside. Those men had all been killed by accidents, wolves, goblins, or the dragon itself.

It would come at night and fill the sky with bright flames, frightening the horses and panicking the men. Sometimes the beast would even dare to come down and gulp up one of the hired men.

Finally it was only Kalkas and Brassen. Falkas had wanted to come, too, but his father forbade it. The boy shivered at the dark look in his father's eye and agreed to stay behind and breed the Rhaw Nur.

The man had not been home for a month, now, spending his nights on the road and following the dragon back to its haunts. Once or twice the dragon had seen him, but it made no move to approach him.

Most men would have given up. Most men would have believed their wives to be dead. But Kalkas was persistent and he swore to either rescue Ilayilia or take revenge on the beast who killed her.


	12. The Elves

**The Elves**

"So, how long will it take to reach Rivendell?" Ilayilia asked. Glarlauk had flown all day, showing remarkable stamina and speed. He only stopped when evening painted the eastern sky purple and indigo.

"About a week," the dragon told her, his eye glinting silver with tiredness.

"That is so fast!" the woman exclaimed. "It used to take my father almost three months!"

"As the horse travels," he snorted. "It is much faster as the crow flies, and even quicker as the dragon flies." Ilayilia could see the dragon was tired, so she fell silent and allowed Glarlauk to sleep.

She had no need of a fire, for the heat within the dragon's belly was enough to warm her even without her cloak.

Ilayilia wondered what the Elves of Rivendell were like, for the ones she had met had been somber and sorrowful. Or perhaps they had only been that way because of the news they bore.

The woman missed the Wood-Elves dearly. As a child, she had spent many hours with their musicians and had learned to sing at their feet. The Wood-Elves were a gentle and merry folk, delighting in feasting and music. But they had protected Brethil from the goblins of the Misty Mountains, for their wooded paths were impossible to navigate without an Elven guide.

So her father had blamed the Elves when orcs attacked their homestead and slew Ilia, her mother. Ilayilia did not believe that the Wood-Elves had betrayed them, as her father did, but if she so much of mentioned the Elves her father would fly into a rage.

It was for that reason her father had banished Anduin: because the boy had been with the Elves at the time of his mother's death. Ilayilia was never sure if her father blamed Anduin as a conspirator in the attack, or just couldn't bear to look on the boy who was so like the Elves.

For Anduin had been beloved of the Wood-Elves. They had called him their Hen Adanedhel, little Elf-man. Sometimes they would call Ilayilia the Aew, or bird, but if she went into the woods alone the Elves would not come out. They only came out if Anduin was with her. So when the boy had fled, Ilayilia was no longer welcome among the Wood-Elves.

So Ilayilia knew, in the depths of her heart and soul, that if anyone knew news of Anduin or could tell her the tale of his death, it was the Elves.

Perhaps the Elves of Rivendell would turn their backs on her, too. But the Aew had to try, for of all things on this earth, she had loved her brother the most.

So Glarlauk carried Ilayilia over the vast lands and forests, following the line of the Misty Mountains.

"_I never knew there was so much land to the south!" _Ilayilia thought to herself. When she had been a child her father had taken the family on the yearly drive, but now that the land was laid out beneath her, it seemed far more vast than any drive she had ever been on.

The dragon was true to his word, and on the seventh day he came to land in a forest of slender trees.

"The Elves living here are warriors," Glarlauk explained. "And they would shoot me from the air." So they walked through the trees, and he knocked over a few of them with his bulk and long trailing tail.

"Have you been here before?" the woman asked.

"I've flown over it," Glarlauk said. "But I never had cause to come within bow-range." Ilayilia laughed nervously and moved closer to the dragon, who huffed comfortingly. They walked unchallenged through the forest and came to the bank of a river. Glarlauk waded in easily; a horse might have been swept away by the deep water, but the river only seemed to lap around the dragon's legs. Glarlauk lifted her across and placed the woman on the far riverbank.

"I wonder if we are close, yet," Ilayilia asked as the dragon climbed out of the water.

"I think we must be very close." Glarlauk's eyes had turned dark purple, and the woman turned to see what was worrying him. A squad of Elven archers stood there, bows drawn and aimed at the dragon's head.

"Tolo! Awartha ha!" (_Come! Get away from it!_) one of the Elves ordered her, but Ilayilia pressed close to Glarlauk in fear. The dragon growled menacingly and curled his black tail around the woman.

"Prepare to fire!" The Elf shouted to the archers.

"Al!" (_No!_) Ilayilia screamed, climbing over Glarlauk's tail and throwing herself upon the dragon's head. "U'harna hon!" (_Don't hurt him!_) The Elves blinked in surprise as she shouted in Sindarin.

"Pedole edhellen?" (_You speak Elvish?_) one of them asked.

"Im laegil mellon," (_I'm an elf-friend _or more specifically: _I am a friend of the Wood-Elves_) Ilayilia said fearfully, still trying to cover Glarlauk's head with her body. "Mellon nin a im thir sinias honeg nin." (_My friend and I seek news of my brother_).

"Your friend?" the Elf asked disbelievingly. "You cannot mean the Amlug?" (_Dragon_).

"He is my protector and companion," Ilayilia insisted. The Elf looked troubled, then nodded to the archers.

"Tofn le cu!" (_Lower your bows_) he ordered. The archers did, still studying Glarlauk warily. "Amlug, do you have any intention of hurting us?" the Elf captain asked the dragon.

"No," Glarlauk said slowly, gently shaking Ilayilia from her protective hold.

"You cannot believe him!" one of the archers shouted.

"Those are griffin feathers," the Elf insisted, pointing at Ilayilia's tunic. "Even the Amlug is subject to their power." He turned back to Ilayilia, avoided Glarlauk's gaze. "Who is this brother you seek news of?"

"His name was Anduin." At that name the Elves cast their eyes down and began to mutter prayers. Some even let a few tears fall, and among these was the captain.

"You are Ilayilia?" he asked, understanding crossing his face.

"I am," she said nervously, wrapping one hand around Glarlauk's spikes. "Who are you?"

"I am called Glorfindel," the Elf responded. "I knew your brother well."

"Please... tell me what happened," she begged, tears coming to her own eyes. "Tell me how he fell."

"That is a story Lord Elrond should tell, not I," Glorfindel insisted.

"Then take us to him."

"I cannot take the Amlug into Imladris," the Elf captain said hesitantly.

"Then I will not come." Glorfindel seemed torn for a moment.

"Evening is coming," he said at last. "I will send a runner to Lord Elrond, and he will decide what shall be done."


	13. Lady Aew and the Amlug

**Lady Aew and the Amlug**

Word came as dusk fell that Lord Elrond would allow Glarlauk and Ilayilia to come into Imladris, provided a guard be kept upon the two at all times. The dragon had trouble descending the narrow path into the valley and ended up flying down to wait for Ilayilia to meet him.

As she walked down the trail between the trees, voices sang out on every side.

"Aew, aew, do not fly too high

Little birds should learn by now

That dragons eat them in a pie

Aew, aew, you must fly down low

Dragons eat birds just like you

Swallowed in a single bite

Aew, you should be careful too

Or you won't live to see light!"

"Forgive them," Glorfindel said as Ilayilia blushed. "They are not usually so... forward."

"It is all right," the woman murmured. "They remind me of the Wood-Elves."

"Yes, the Dark-Elves do have a way with song," Glorfindel admitted wryly. "Welcome, my lady, to the Last Homely House." Ilayilia looked up and saw that she had reached the bottom of the cliff. Behind Glarlauk rose a beautiful home of wooden gables and marble arches. Four great waterfalls rushed down into the valley and fed the lush gardens Ilayilia could see tucked between the walls.

"It's beautiful," she gasped. Glarlauk gave a small snort of reluctant agreement.

"That is a true compliment," Glorfindel smiled. "Coming from the wearer of the Griffin Tunic. I suppose you acquired it for her, Amlug?"

"My name is Glarlauk," the black dragon growled, his eyes flickered burgundy.

"Please, Glarlauk," Ilayilia pleaded. The dragon snorted and threaded his tail between the woman and Glorfindel, drawing her closer to his black hide.

"I don't trust them," the dragon growled.

"We won't stay long," she said. "Please. I just want to know what happened to Anduin, and then we'll be gone." Glarlauk snarled, but followed Ilayilia and the Elves into Rivendell. There was a narrow bridge the humans had to walk along, but Glarlauk soared over it easily.

"Your friend, is he?" Glorfindel asked dryly. Ilayilia giggled slightly, for she remembered her own reactions those first few days.

A war-like party met them: Elves with weapons close a hand and eyes narrowed as they watched Glarlauk. The dragon watched them, too, but his eyes had faded from the burgundy of irritation into a suspicious brown.

One Elf did not stare at the black dragon. He was tall and stately with long, brown hair and wise grey eyes. When the Elf saw Ilayilia looking at him, he smiled and spread his arms.

"Welcome, Ilayilia the Aew," he said, his voice musical and deep. "I am Elrond. Come into my house in peace." Ilayilia cast another glance at the tense warriors and moved closer to Glarlauk's side.

"This is Glarlauk, my traveling companion," she said, her blue eyes searching Elrond's grey ones. "You will not hurt him?" Elrond looked over the black dragon and gestured for the Elven guards around them to relax.

"If your Amlug will sleep outside of Rivendell and hunt only outside our boarders," Elrond allowed. Glarlauk nodded to the Elf lord and turned around in the tight space.

"If you need me," the dragon told her, glaring at Glorfindel, "Just shout." With that he spread his black leathery wings and flew across the bridge. Ilayilia watched as he settled down, eyes fixed on the Elven city.

"I am sorry about him," she sighed. "But you were threatening him."

"I foresaw that you would come," Elrond told her, eyes sparkling. "But I had no idea you would bring a friend. Come, we have much to discuss. Have you eaten?"

Ilayilia knew that she probably looked painfully thin. She hadn't been eating much since Glarlauk had captured her. At first she had put it down to not getting the exercise she usually got by raising, training, and riding the Rhaw Nur. Now she realized that she was too thin, almost as slender as the Elves around her.

"Not today, my lord," she mumbled, coming to stand with Elrond, who took her hand and led her inside. The woman cast a last glance as the black dragon before she was led inside.

"I assume that the Amlug is not well acquainted with human eating patterns?"

"No! No, Glarlauk brings me enough food. 'Two-leg' food, he calls it."

"How did you meet him?" Ilayilia paused and considered for a moment. She did not want to tell the Elves that she had been captured and forced to stay against her will, for fear that they would kill Glarlauk and betray the trust the dragon had in her.

"He... found me," she replied weakly. _"Why aren't you telling the truth? Don't you want to go home?"_ an inner voice asked. Of course she wanted to go home. Of course she desperately wanted to see her family. But as she had told Glarlauk, she was fond of him. The woman might not love the dragon, and she doubted she ever would, but they shared a bond of mutual trust.

"I see," Elrond said doubtfully. "Here is your room. We will talk further in the morning. Goodnight, Aew."

"Wait, before you go," Ilayilia called as Elrond turned from the door her had gestured to. "How do you know to call my by that name?"

"Aew?" The Elf lord asked. "Anduin called sometimes called you that." Ilayilia stood frozen as Elrond walked back down the hallway and disappeared beyond the lanterns light.

Anduin had spoken of her. Her little brother had remembered Ilayilia in his exile.


	14. House Arrest

**House Arrest and Possessions**

The room was small and instead of walls there were large windows that looked down on a courtyard. A bed was there, also, and a washstand with a pitcher of water. Ilayilia collapsed on the bed in a sprawl, sighing at its soft give. She wondered how long it had been since she last slept in a bed.

The woman's eyes closed and she began to doze in and out of a dream. The dream troubled her, but when she woke she could not remember why.

She must have only slept a few hours for it was still night outside. Someone had been in and left a bowl of fruit and a platter of white bread that tore easily in her hands. There was also a small vessel of amber-colored wine. Ilayilia ate sparingly, just enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at her stomach.

The gentle notes of a harp came from outside her windows, and soon these were joined by the trill of a flute. Ilayilia went to her window to listen as the Elves began singing. By the second song, the woman was feeling restless so she went to the door, intent on exploring the courtyard below.

But when she pulled open the wooden door, an Elf jumped up from his seat across the hall. Ilayilia smiled shyly at him and tried to step out of her room.

"I'm sorry, Aew," the Elf told her, holding up his hands to stop her. "You cannot leave your room."

"Why not?" she frowned, trying to slip past the guard.

"Lord Elrond's orders," the Elf insisted. "If you have need of anything, just tell me and it will be fetched." Ilayilia thought for a moment, then asked for a towel. To her disappointment, the Elf did not leave, but called for someone else to bring the towel. The woman took it with a scowl and slammed the door behind her.

Then she placed the towel on the bed and snuck across her room to the windows. Looking down, she found a particularly sturdy vine that climbed past her room. Ilayilia took the vine in both her hands and swung her legs over the window ledge. She climbed down swiftly and quietly, jumping down the last few feet and landing on the balls of her feet.

She paused and listened for a moment, but the singing continued. The woman ran lightly forward and hid in the shadow of a tree. Ilayilia stopped and glanced around, but no one seemed to have noticed her yet. There was a long dash toward the shadow of a wall, but then she would be out of the courtyard.

Ilayilia managed to sneak to the archway where she had been received earlier that evening. The woman eyed the long empty space of the bridge between her and Glarlauk. With a deep breath, she plunged into the open and ran across the narrow stone bridge. The dragon watched with lavender eyes, indicating his concern, as Ilayilia ran to him.

The woman pressed up against Glarlauk's side, her breast heaving with her wild dash.

"Are you all right?" the dragon asked softly, sniffing her with concern.

"They tried to lock me in my room!" Ilayilia told him indignantly.

"I see they failed," Glarlauk's eyes sparkled sky blue for a moment.

"Lady Aew?" a voice called. The woman glanced around the dragon's side and saw Glorfindel with his company of Elves. "How did you...?"

"She's mine, little gold hair," Glarlauk snarled and placed a leathery wing over Ilayilia protectively, smoke curling from his nostrils.

"Please!" she pushed her way out from under his wing. Glorfindel had drawn his sword angrily and the other Elves were fingering the fletching of their arrows. "I wished to be with Glarlauk. Is that not allowed?"

"Lord Elrond issued express orders," the captain told her. Ilayilia's blue eyes flashed and she crossed her arms.

"I wish to spend time with my Amlug," she said fiercely. Glorfindel stepped forward but Glarlauk stopped him in his tracks with a menacing growl.

"Watch yourself, agarwaen!" the Elf snarled. Ilayilia hissed at the insult.

"What did you call me?" Glarlauk was allowing the fire to build up in his throat.

"Agarwaen! Bloodstained!" Glorfindel translated. The dragon rumbled, and Ilayilia felt the heat coming from him beginning to scorch her skin.

"Stop!" she shouted at both the males. "I will go back!" Glarlauk did not seem satisfied and he continued to stare down the Elves with murderous blood-red eyes. "Please, Glarlauk," Ilayilia begged, tugging at the dragon's spiny cheek. "You must behave!"

The dragon snarled one last time, but allowed her to leave his side and walk back to the bridge. When Glorfindel went to escort her, though, Glarlauk raised himself to his full height and glared down at the Elf. Glorfindel calmly ignored him and came to stand next to Ilayilia.

"This way, Lady Aew," the Elf said, graciously offering her his arm. She looked at it, then back at the glaring dragon, before she turned and walked over the bridge. Glorfindel seemed annoyed, but followed her anyway.

"How can you allow it to treat you that way?" the Elf asked as they entered Rivendell.

"What way?" Ilayilia snapped. She was being unfair, but she had been frightened.

"Like a possession!"

"I am a possession!" she shouted. "He owns me!" Glorfindel looked stunned, but Ilayilia turned and ran to her room. The guard outside of it started and his stunned face was the last thing she saw when she slammed the door yet again.

Sometime later there was a knocking at her door, but the woman ignored it and fell into her bed, allowing sleep to blacken her mind.


	15. Robins and Healing

**Robins and Healing**

When she woke to the sound of bird's singing, Ilayilia felt slightly ashamed at her behavior the previous night. But she rose and washed her face in the basin, allowing the cold water to refresh her. Then she opened her brown pack and pulled out the blue dress.

Its satin folds slithered over her skin, making her shiver slightly. Ilayilia frowned, for it was yet again too big despite her initial alterations. The woman pulled on the sleeves until the pearls on them were perfectly lined up. The dress was a soft, cornflower blue, but its sleeves were the color of the winter's night sky and the pearls glowed like tiny stars.

Then Ilayilia combed out her long black hair so that it hung straight and silky down her back. She placed the Elven crown Glarlauk had given her on top of her head and allowed the golden veil to tumble down her hair.

No breakfast had been waiting, so the woman sat on the edge of the bed and waited for someone to come and get her.

Finally a knock came and Ilayilia went to open the door. To her relief, the Elf waiting there was not Glorfindel but a beautiful Elf-maiden with light brown hair. The Elf gestured for her to follow and then led the woman through the hallways and into a garden. A small circular table was set up with breakfast: golden apples, white bread, honey, porridge, and water in tall crystal goblets.

The Elf turned and left, leaving Ilayilia alone in the garden. The woman sat down and began to nibble at a piece of bread dripping with honey. A robin fluttered down onto the table and watched Ilayilia, head cocked inquisitively to one side.

"Mae govannen, mellon pin," (_Well-met, little friend_) Ilayilia said softly. She crumbled a few pieces of bread in her hand and the robin hopped forward. The woman held out her hand and whispered softly to the bird, who gradually came close enough to peck at the crumbs.

The robin fluttered away, leaving Ilayilia to brush the crumbs off of her fingers. But the bird returned, carrying a white blossom in its beak. It deposited the flower in her hand and landed on the table once more. Ilayilia smiled and brushed her fingers against the petals of the apple blossom, the flower of hope. Suddenly an eagle cried and the robin shot away to the shelter of a tree.

"I hope you slept well." Ilayilia turned and saw Lord Elrond walking through the garden.

"The room has a lovely view," Ilayilia side-stepped. Elrond noticed and frowned slightly, looking over the mostly-untouched meal.

"Can we get you something else to eat?" he asked quietly.

"No, I'm not hungry," she said quickly. "Please, you promised to tell me about..."

"Ah, yes," Elrond sighed. "But first I would like to hear your story." The Elf sat down opposite her and looked at the woman expectantly.

"My story?" she shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes, Glorfindel tells me you were quite... distraught last night."

"I wish to be let out of my room when I wish to do so," Ilayilia replied coldly. "I wish to see Glarlauk when I want to." Elrond examined the woman with calculating grey eyes, looking over the headdress she wore and her bare feet.

"Aew, tell me about Amlug," he commanded softly. "The truth." She ran her fingers along the edge of the apple blossom and took a deep breath.

"Only if you promise me one thing," she said, closing her eyes. "You will not harm Glarlauk."

They spoke long into the morning and well past lunchtime. At one point, Elrond led Ilayilia to the tomb of Anduin. The woman knelt there and shuddered with repressed sobs. The Elf lord did not leave her side, but placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as she shook with grief.

"Aew," Elrond said at last, when she had finally quieted and was gently stroking the marble cheek of the statue. "Anduin stopped a great malice from rising. He died nobly." The woman nodded, barely registering the Elf's words. "But he could not save all the lands."

"How do you mean?" she whispered. The Elven sculptors were skilled; the carving of her brother looked at though it would walk any minute and shake off the false slumber.

"The fragments he sought to destroy cursed the land," Elrond explained. "And the land where they were hidden never healed, not properly." Ilayilia did not respond, but slipped her finger's into the hands of the statue. Her little brother had grown up to be very handsome. "Aew?"

"Yes?" she asked, blinking away the fog of memory and sorrow that clouded her mind and eyes.

"Someone needs to heal the land," Elrond lifted the woman up and met her eyes. "To go to the four corners of the world and remove the blemishes of Morgoth's evil."

"What does this have to do...?"

"It is your destiny," Elrond insisted. "This is your path: to finish Anduin's work." Ilayilia looked at her brother's tomb and then back at the Elf lord.

"You... you See this?" she asked, aware that she had begun to tremble again.

"As soon as I saw you with the Amlug," Elrond insisted. "I knew the two of you would heal the land."

"Glarlauk?" Ilayilia shook her head, thinking of the temperamental dragon. "No, he only wants to live with his gold..."

"He will do this if you ask him," Elrond told the woman.

"Why?"

"Because he treasures you."


	16. Beauty

**Beauty**

"Glarlauk, do you think it is time to leave?" Ilayilia asked. She had been allowed to come to the dragon where he waited outside Rivendell. Glarlauk hesitated, for it was not purely from kindness that he had brought the woman here. He knew The Man was closing in, and he had fled his lair to escape the Hunter.

"Are you ready to go back?" he asked finally. Ilayilia was wearing the blue dress, and this pleased Glarlauk very much. But the woman paused before she answered.

"Would you be willing to... go on a journey with me?" she asked. The dragon froze and considered this for a moment.

"What sort of journey? And where?" he asked, wondering if such a journey would throw his Hunter off the track.

So Ilayilia explained to him all that Lord Elrond had said, and the dragon listened quietly. "It would be far," she said hesitantly. "And it might take long."

"I don't know," Glarlauk said slowly. "What would be in it for me?"

"Does something have to be?" Ilayilia sighed. The dragon looked at her keenly. "Oh very well!" she snapped, exasperated. "I'll think about it." The woman stood and brushed leaves from her dress. But when she made to leave, Glarlauk blocked her path with his tail.

"What is it now?" Ilayilia sighed. Glarlauk looked down at her with thoughtful, dark green eyes.

"Will you answer a question for me?" the dragon asked. Ilayilia looked a little surprised, but nodded and waited. "Am I..." Glarlauk hesitated. Maybe the woman would think this was silly, but the dragon had wondered this for a long time. He valued beautiful things so highly, and this thought had bothered him for many years.

"Yes?" the two-leg prompted. Glarlauk closed his eyes and blurted out his question.

"Am I beautiful?" There was silence. The dragon's heart fell slightly and if he could have cried, he might have. Then he heard a soft sound. "Are you laughing?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"I can't help it!" Ilayilia giggled. "But you are so very vain!" Glarlauk tried to assume a lofty expression.

"Well? Am I?" he asked. Ilayilia stifled her laughs and looked up and down the dragon, evaluating him. He sat very still as her gaze passed over him.

"Yes," she decided. "I think you are." Glarlauk sighed with relief. "Amlug, will you answer a question for me?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied, feeling fairly pleased with himself.

"Do you love me?" The dragon froze, his forked tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His eyes flashed from color to color: dark purple and worried, forest green and thoughtful, yellow and confused.

"I... it please me when you sing," he stammered. Ilayilia met his eyes with her dark blue ones.

"Dragon," she asked again. "Do you love me?"

"I am... glad to own you," he offered. The woman sighed and patted the dragon's black tail.

"I do not love you either," she assured him. "But I am glad we are on the same page." Glarlauk watched as Ilayilia turned and crossed the bridge, vanishing into the Elven city. She did not love him, nor did she expect him to love her. She was a very strange two-leg. Glarlauk shook his great head, then snapped it around when he heard a noise.

"You could have lied." It was the golden-haired two-leg. Glarlauk bared his teeth instinctively but then fought down a growl. She had asked him to behave.

"She wanted the truth," the dragon rumbled, fighting to swallow his fire.

"But you still could have lied," the Elf insisted. "Why didn't you?" Glarlauk tilted his head to one side and studied the two-leg.

"She trusts me," he said finally. "Why should I betray that trust?"

"Because any normal dragon would have, Agarwaen."

"Is that what you have decided to call me?"

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"A little." The Elf and dragon regarded each other for a moment, eyes sparkling with their own amusement.

"Then again, any normal dragon would have eaten her," the two-leg insisted. "Any normal dragon wouldn't have brought her here out of the kindness of his heart." Glarlauk shifted uncomfortable: so his intentions weren't honorable! His human was all too happy to come south!

"You have never heard her sing," Glarlauk retorted softly.

"I suppose not, Agarwaen," the Elf shrugged. "But I have heard many fair-voiced maidens."

"They are nothing compared to Ilayilia," the dragon insisted.


	17. Lily the Rose

A/N: The "Ballad of Lily the Rose" is copyrighted by me, Elmethea.

**Lily the Rose**

"Lady Aew?" Ilayilia turned from where she was sitting on a stone bench. She had been sitting there all afternoon and into the early evening, trying to figure out what to give Glarlauk in exchange for his accompaniment. The Elf who had called her name was Glorfindel, and the woman instinctively stood and tried to walk away.

"Please, Aew!" the Elf called to her. "I came to apologize. I did not mean to upset you." Ilayilia hesitated slightly before sitting back on the bench.

"I forgive you," she decided. Glorfindel smiled and suddenly Ilayilia was reminded of another Elf... "Was that you?" the woman asked abruptly.

"Was what me?" Glorfindel seemed confused.

"That day, the day my father died," she insisted. "You were there! You gave him those rings!" The Elf suddenly looked very sad and uncomfortable.

"No, that was not me," he told her. "That was my son, Eliohad."

"Where is he now?" Ilayilia asked, fearing the worst.

"He crossed the Sea with all that remained of the Elves accompanying Anduin," Glorfindel told her, sitting down beside her and taking her hands in his. "He... loved your brother very much." Ilayilia blushed slightly at Glorfindel's touch.

"If your son was anything like you," she murmured. "I would have been happy to give them my blessing." The Elf and woman sat there for a time, each thinking their own thoughts.

"Glarlauk says you have a very beautiful voice," Glorfindel smiled at last. "Would you care to sing?"

"I... um, well, I've never sung for anyone outside my family." The truth was that Ilayilia felt shy singing in front of Elves. But Glorfindel merely grinned and produced a small harp from beneath his cloak and began to tune it.

"Come on, I can't let the Aew leave Rivendell without hearing a song," he encouraged. Ilayilia flushed and cast her eyes down modestly.

"Well, do you know the Ballad of Lilly the Rose?" she asked. "It is a Northern ballad, so you may not have heard it."

"I'm sure I can pick it up," the Elf winked. The woman began to hum and Glorfindel picked up the tune easily and strummed his harp.

"Lilly the Rose was a beautiful maid

The fairest in all the of valley-o.

When she was sent for

By Duke Kenator

A wedding was sure soon to follow.

But Lilly the Rose loved a hunter's lad

And she gave him her heart one night

So Lilly turned down

A long wedding gown

And attentions of many a knight

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

And the Rose went with her fair lover fine

And disguised herself as a lad

And then on one night

They sped off in flight

With haste and speed to the Sea of Rad

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

So dainty a lad the coast never saw

As Lilly the Rose shining bright

And up on a ship

They left the shore's lip

Just before the sunrise's soft light

And upon that ship they joined their two hands

And the captain witnessed their joy

With vows of sweet love

To carry above

Lilly the Rose wed the hunter's boy

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

The Rose's father and suitors and more

Did follow them to the Rad Sea

With knives and daggers,

Warrants from Lagger

They searched high and low for the lady

But nowhere could they find her braided locks

Not a hair of Lilly the Rose

No port saw her, fair

No man saw her hair

For Lilly stole a sailor boy's clothes

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

But many marines the hunter's lad saw

And many told whence had gone he

For a price of gold

Their story was sold

Alas for the boy and his lady!

The father and brothers and suitors fine

Did follow them over the sea

With knives and daggers,

Warrants from Lagger

They sped after the boy and lady.

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair.

The second week out they spotted the ship

Whereon sailed the fairest Lilly

And pulling along

They boarded 'ere long

And discovered the boy and lady.

With seven slashes they killed Lilly's love

Though Lilly she cried and pleaded

They put her aboard

And turned back to shore

The Rose to return to her valley

But Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

And when they came within sight of the shore

The maiden surveyed the vast Sea

With red roses clutched

And lilies and such

Over jumped the Rose of the valley

She said, "Dear mother, forgive me this crime

To commit myself to the Sea

They took his young life

And captured his wife

Now the Rad Sea will claim my body!"

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair

The waters took her and carried her down

Now no man could save poor Lilly

Though upon the brine

They cast her a line

Fair Lilly the Rose drowned most gladly.

During the sunset if you look aright

The Rad Sea is colored like blood

It is not the sun

That glares like crimson

But the waves filled with red roses' buds.

For Lilly was clever

And Lilly was fair

And Lilly cut off all

Of her long red hair."

Glorfindel put down his harp and stared at Ilayilia. The woman blushed in embarrassment and made to move away, but the Elf grabbed her wrist.

"I have heard singers who are commonly considered the best singers of all Elves," he said in amazement. "Your voice puts them to shame."

"My lord is too kind," Ilayilia mumbled and tried to pull her wrist from his grasp.

"No, little Aew!" the Elf insisted. "I do not do you justice enough! Where did you learn to sing?"

"The Wood-Elves taught me," she said.

"Then they never had a better student!" Glorfindel said rapturously.

"My lord, release me!" Ilayilia demanded, her eyes sparkling in anger. The Elf only smiled and gripped her arm tighter, pulling her close.

"You don't know what you're doing!" the woman warned, struggling to break free.

"I know exactly what I'm doing," Glorfindel tried to assure her.

"I am married!" she shouted. The Elf, stunned, released her hand. Ilayilia turned on her heel and fled. Glorfindel stared after her.

Ilayilia ran through the streets of Rivendell, nearly knocking Elves over in her haste. At last she came to the narrow bridge and she stumbled across it, fighting back tears. Glarlauk waited for her and put a protective wing over her without question.

"I will stay with you!" she told him, fighting down sobs.

"What?" Glarlauk's eyes lit up hopefully.

"If you do this for me, I swear to abide with you forever and sing for you!" Ilayilia pressed up against the dragon's side, hoping his vastness would fill the hole she felt inside.

"You don't have to..." Glarlauk said slowly, his eyes filled with light purple concern.

"Isn't that what you want?" she demanded. "Isn't that what you've been after?"

"Yes," the dragon admitted. "But you are upset and making a rash..."

"I know what I'm doing!" she snapped. Glarlauk's wing pulled in tighter, blocking out the sky and the rising stars. The dragon growled at anyone who came too close during the night and Ilayilia fell asleep under his comforting guard.

"I'm not sure I want to do this," Ilayilia told the dragon the next morning.

"You don't have to," he told her, his rumbling voice gentle and kind.

"But what if it's what Anduin wanted?" she asked.

"This is about what you want," Glarlauk told her firmly. "Not your brother, not any old Elf." The dragon was not sure what had happened the previous day, but he strongly suspected the gold-haired two-leg.

Ilayilia took a deep breath, then came out from under Glarlauk's protective wing. The sun was fairly high in the sky and she blinked in its bright rays. The woman started across the bridge, but turned and looked back at Glarlauk.

"Will you... come with me?" she asked hesitantly. The dragon nodded and stood, stretching out his bat-like wings. He waited until she was across so that the beating of his wings would not knock her off the bridge. Together they walked into the Elven city.

The inhabitants took one look at the black dragon and faded away, down halls and into shadows. Glarlauk ignored them, trailing protectively behind Ilayilia who walked purposefully and with determination.

Lord Elrond hurried out to meet them, looking surprised and little anxious to find Glarlauk in his city.

"I have decided," Ilayilia said firmly, raising her head. "I will undertake this task." Elrond nodded and glanced at the black dragon again.

"If you will come into my study I can show you the details..." he began but the woman shook her head.

"Glarlauk will not leave me," she announced. The dragon bared his teeth and allowed a little fire to stir inside him.

"Of course," Elrond said quickly. "I will bring the maps out to you." When the Elf left, Ilayilia sighed in relief and gave Glarlauk a shaky smile, which he returned with a rather frightening display of teeth.

Elrond brought out several maps and documents. He spread them out on the garden table and began to explain.

"There were four locations affected by the fragments," he said, pointing each out on the map and he said them. "Tooktown, Gondor, a portion of the Rhun, and Gundabad. However, my reposts indicate that the damage done around Gundabad was simply magical and its effects are wearing off. In Gondor, however, the damage was irreversible. It is covered in sand and is now a barren desert. But you might be able to save Tooktown and the area in the Rhun."

Elrond remained deep in discussion with Ilayilia and Glarlauk throughout the day, briefing them on the damage done in both places and also the inhabitants living around each area.

Glarlauk was most interested in the maps, because he would be the one flying everywhere. Ilayilia listened raptly as Elrond described what she must do.

"First go to Lorien," he told her. "And there collect a small bit of soil. When you sprinkle this soil on the land, it will blossom and prosper."

"What about the Elves who live in Lorien?" Ilayilia asked. "Will they give up their soil freely?"

"Anduin was well-liked there," Elrond explained kindly. "I believe his sister will be welcomed there. But have a care in both Lorien and the Shire: the Amlug will not be well-met."


	18. Messengers of Manwe

**Messengers of Manwe**

Before they left, Ilayilia took Elrond's advice and used a belt to bind seven griffin feathers to Glarlauk's head. The black dragon lifted a claw and tried to flick one of the feathers from his eye.

"Oh, please," the woman sighed. He did look rather silly with the belt tied under his chin. "Elrond says it will be gesture of goodwill. Besides, I think it makes you look rather dashing." Glarlauk stopped and peered in the river, studying his reflection carefully.

"Dashing?" he asked, turning his head this way and that to examine himself. "Do you really think so?"

"Of course," she said.

"Hmm," the dragon considered this for a moment, arching his neck vainly. "Well, all right. Beauty is a burden, I suppose." Ilayilia giggled slightly. Glarlauk looked at her, blinking around the feathers. "You aren't wearing your Griffin Tunic. Are you... are you lying to me?"

Ilayilia patted his head. "It's called joking," she sighed. Then she put her hand on one of the feathers and swore, "You look no sillier than normal."

"Hardly a true compliment," the dragon snorted.

"But honest," she argued. Glarlauk snorted and wrapped his claws gently around her thin body; he was constantly surprised by how frail she felt. The dragon carefully lifted the woman and pressed her to his chest.

"Close your eyes," he warned, tensing the muscles in his hind legs and opening his wings with a snap. Glarlauk rose into the air, steadily beating the breeze with his strong wings and circling Rivendell once. Then he turned towards the Misty Mountains, Ilayilia clutched to his hot chest.

They made the base of the mountains, a journey that would take nearly two weeks for any mounted rider, by that evening. Glarlauk stopped for the night, his tired eyes glazed with silver.

Ilayilia went through the provisions the Elves had given her, finally pulling out an oat farl and nibbling at it. She was not tired, having done nothing all day but sit in Glarlauk's claws, but soon the dragon began to snore in a rumbling sound.

An owl swooped through the trees nearby, hunting in the night.

"Manwe's blessings for you, too, mellon," (_friend_) Ilayilia whispered. Owls were sometimes considered good luck in Brethil, but they were just as often considered harbingers of death. Especially while hunting.

There was a flutter of wings, and the woman looked up to see the owl perch on an elm tree. She was a magnificent barn owl, her pale white face glowed out from soft honey-colored feathers.

The owl was silent, mercifully, for it was not chance that gave it the second name "Screaming Owl". Ilayilia, her motions slow and careful, put a hand in the bag of provisions. A piece of dried venison came to hand and the woman held it out.

The owl considered the offer for a moment, then fluttered down to land on Ilayilia's outstretched arm. The bird delicately accepted the offering, gulping down the morsel with dainty relish. Ilayilia extended a hand and stroked the owl's barred wings. The owl remained silent, its black eyes studying her carefully.

"It is a shame you cannot sing, beauty," Ilayilia told her quietly. The owl regarded her silently. "Perhaps I can teach you?" the woman offered.

"Whoorrooo, whoorroo, twirl-a-too.

Ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo. Krek-krek gawh.

Pyree-pyree, prlek-prlek. Oo-aw

Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all."

It was a short, nonsense song consisting of all the owl calls Ilayilia had ever heard. The barn owl listened somberly and then, to the woman's utter surprise and delight, repeated the song.

Then the barn owl fluttered back to the elm tree. Turning its head all the way around to look at Ilayilia, it repeated her little song, adding a few trills of its own. The woman stood and went to stand beneath the owl, who took off yet again and settled on another tree.

The owl led her through the forest, until Glarlauk was far behind and his rumbling snores had faded into the night. Gradually, Ilayilia became aware of soft hoots and clicks coming from ahead of her guide. There were many more owls somewhere in the night.

At last the barn owl fluttered into a clearing were only one large oak tree stood. The tree must have been very old, for its branches were broad and, in the darkness, were filled with starlight. And owls.

Ilayilia had never seen so many owls. There were more barn owls, screech owls, barred owls, spotted owls, great-horned owls, and even a few snowy owls. The woman stared in shock at the feather congregation, who looked back at her with solemn eyes.

"Whoorrooo, whoorroo, twirl-a-too-loo-a.

Ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo. Krek-krek gawh-ah.

Pyree-pyree, prlek-prlek. Oo-aw, trrrooo.

Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all." The barn owl sang softly. Ilayilia paused and then joined her guide in a second chorus.

The owls blinked and swiveled there heads to look at each other. Then they rose, in one large silent mass, and descended on Ilayilia. They perched on her outstretched arms and settled on her head and shoulders.

"Whoorrooo, whoorroo, twirl-a-too-loo-a.

Ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo. Krek-krek gawh-ah.

Pyree-pyree, prlek-prlek. Oo-aw, trrrooo.

Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all." They whispered in soft, rasping voices. Then, one by one, the owls ghosted away into the night, leaving Ilayilia in a shower of their feathers. She picked up a barred one and ran her fingers lightly over it.

"Manwe, what plans do you have for me?" she whispered stooping to collect the feathers. She might have been more amazed that these were the only presents the owls left her, had not the entire episode seemed strange.

Ilayilia took the feathers back to where Glarlauk slept and, still not feeling at all tired, she began to sew them among onto the Griffin Tunic. By the time the sun rose grey, brown, honey, black, and white feathers were intermingled among the golden shafts.

"I'm not sure if I like the overall effect," the dragon said, examining the tunic with one dark green eye.

"Will they affect the feathers' magic?" Ilayilia asked with concern, running her hand over the shirt. You could barely see the pain undyed cloth beneath.

"I doubt it," Glarlauk snorted. "But you did well to keep them. The Lord of the Skies does not send gifts without reason."

That day they crossed over the Misty Mountains. Even though Glarlauk flew high in the air, he still stirred the snow on the mountaintops with the beats of his wings. Once Ilayilia even managed to extend her hand and come up with a handful of snow.

On the other side of the mountains, Glarlauk landed and set Ilayilia down on the grass. His eyes were filled with the molten silver of exhaustion. They had not traveled as far as the previous day, but the winds over the peaks had been strong and it had taken much effort on his part to overcome them.

Ilayilia felt tired, too, after her sleepless night. She curled up next to Glarlauk's side and fell asleep, the dragon's rumbling snores the last thing she heard.

When she woke again, still curled up against the warmth the dragon's hide offered, it was truly night. Ilayilia blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up as her stomach rumbled. With a sigh she snagged the pack of provisions and pulled it close to her.

A pair of yellow eyes blinked from the night.

Letting go of the pack with a gasp, Ilayilia scooted backwards, cringing into Glarlauk's side. A pack of wolves had come upon them while they slept and had crept up close.

"Glarlauk!" she cried, her voice breaking with fear. She tried to pound on the dragon's scales, but he seemed to feel nothing and merely snorted.

A wolf growled and snuck forward, its eyes fixed on the defenseless woman. She scrambled for a weapon and her hand closed around a rock. She threw it at the advancing wolf, which yelped and scuttled away.

A roar rent the air. Glarlauk had woken up and he stood with a snarl. He spat fire at the wolf pack and tossed one aside with his heavy claw. Growling, the dragon turned and glared down the rest of the pack, which turned and fled into the darkness.

"Are you all right?" Glarlauk asked, nuzzling the woman worriedly.

"Yes," she whispered, terrified of what could have happened if the dragon hadn't been there. "Maybe... maybe we should light a fire after all."

Glarlauk left her to gather firewood, his eyes lavender with concern.

"I'm sorry," he said at last. "I should have woken sooner. It is my task to defend you."

"Your task?" Ilayilia asked, arranging the wood in a neat tent formation. The dragon blew gently and a small flame ignited the wood, creating a cheerful blaze.

"One must be protective of his belongings," he explained as the woman sat beside him again. "If he has dominion over them, the least they can expect is care and protection."

"I don't think most possessions would mind," Ilayilia yawned. The dragon chortled a little and watched as she drifted off to sleep. She was really very beautiful, he observed with pride. The woman's hair reminded him of jet-stones and her eyes, now closed in sleep, were like little sapphires. She was very pale and her skin had an almost translucent quality, but that thought made Glarlauk shiver when he considered what would have happened if wolves' teeth tore through her. No, he could not have picked a better two-leg to bond to.

He should have taken better care of her. That was a master's job.

A/N: Not sure I should claim the "Owl's Song" as mine. It literally is just the calls of various owls strung together.


	19. A Less Than Hospitable Welcome

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Kaisaan Greenleaf, the one who asked me to post this story and who has encouraged me to keep going.

**A Less Than Hospitable Welcome**

The next morning, they agreed to walk the rest of the way to Lorien, for fear that Elven archers might shoot Glarlauk out of the sky. It was not a long way, but the ground was rocky for a time and the sun quickly rose in all its fiery heat.

The dragon moved swiftly, his belly low to the ground and his head down. Climbing a rocky outcrop by about mid-morning, he saw a large golden-green wood ahead. Glarlauk looked back and saw Ilayilia picking her way around a small pool.

"You two-legs move so slowly!" Glarlauk rumbled in amusement. "How on earth have you survived? You've no scales, no fire, practically no fangs or talons and you cannot even go fast!" The woman glared at the gloating beast as she bent and scooped a handful of cold water to drink.

"But we've our brains," she retorted, standing and wiping her hands on her breeches. They were made of doe skin and had been given by the Elves. Ilayilia also wore her Griffin Tunic (though by now it was half Owl) and her Elven headdress.

"Once, when dragons were still a mighty people, we were known for having more wisdom than all the libraries of Men and Elves," Glarlauk said, watching the woman come closer. He lowered his tail and curled it tightly about her in order to lift her beside him.

"Really? I have never heard of that!" The woman said, looking up at the dragon in amazement.

"Yes, we were once considered Masters of Knowledge," he sighed. "For at that time, knowledge was precious to us."

"What happened?" Glarlauk ignored the subtle jibe and allowed his gaze to wander back to the golden wood ahead.

"Treasure," he explained. "Gold and jewels taken from the belly of the earth. A few of us - and I like to include myself - still value things beyond their aspect. Like the Griffin Tunic." Ilayilia looked down at her shirt as he continued. "I did not take it for its beauty, although its does glitter very prettily, I took it for its worth. Truth, not power. Honesty, not lust. _All that glitters is not gold._"

"I feel," the woman said hesitantly, placing a light hand on Glarlauk's hide. "That everything I have known of your race is a falsehood."

"It probably isn't," the dragon assured her. "Almost all of our kind has been corrupted by greed. For example, I do not collect books or writings for all my claim to value Truth and Honesty."

Ilayilia and Glarlauk stood there for a time, looking at the distant forest.

"There's a view I would like to bottle and save for a rainy day," the dragon said, nodding towards the forest. "But it won't get any nearer by staring at it."

They picked their way down the slope, Glarlauk moving at a considerably slower pace to match Ilayilia, and came to a wide grassy plain. The woman begged a stop and sat in the shade of the dragon's shadow. He stretched out, his eyes closed, and basked in the sun.

"Just like a cat," Ilayilia muttered.

"What's that?"

"Nothing!" When the sun began its descent they set off again and came into the woods by the late-afternoon's shadows.

"Perhaps it would be best if you walked behind me," Ilayilia advised and the dragon obligingly fell back. She kept a hand on his nose and walked warily, her bare feet scuffing among the leaves. The trees stretched above their heads to the sky, leaving light to filter down through their leaves.

"Dar! U'tolle haeron!" (_Halt! You can come no further!_) a voice called. Ilayilia froze and Glarlauk stopped behind her, his eyes dark purple and worried.

"U'faegamin harno," (_We mean no harm_) she called into the woods.

"Amin? Lle ah amlug?" (_We? You and the dragon?_) the voice retorted.

"Im buia Thorroe Hamp," (_I am the servant of the Griffin Tunic_) Ilayilia tried to keep her voice calm and cool. "U'faegamin harno." (_We mean no harm_). There was a brief moment of silence, as though the guard was examining her shirt to be sure of its origin.

"Man ned pan edlothian?" (_What of the other feathers?_)

"Ant o Manwe," (_A gift from Manwe_) she answered readily. "Im Ilayilia Aew, muinthel Anduin Caun, ion Alenor, hil Calenor." (_I am Ilayilia the Bird, sister of Anduin the Valiant, the son of Alenor, heir of Calenor_). There was no response, but the atmosphere shifted subtly.

Finally a single guard emerged form the trees, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. Glarlauk did not doubt that there were more of the two-legs hidden nearby, no doubt with arrows aimed straight at him.

"Im tirith o glad," (_I am a guard of the forest_) the Elf said. He had long silvery hair and wore a breast plate of shining silver. Ilayilia curtseyed, allowing her arms to leave her sides in order to show her unarmed status. She repeated her name and introduced Glarlauk to the guard, whose mouth curled distastefully.

"Were you with any other companion, you would have received greatest welcome in Lorien," the guard assured her.

"Were I with any other companion, I would not have made it to Lorien," Ilayilia replied. Glarlauk proudly extended his neck so that his head almost touched the bottom most branches of the trees.

"The amlug is your protector?" the Elf asked.

"I can speak for myself," Glarlauk said loftily. Ilayilia placed a warning hand on the dragon's side.

"Behave," she said firmly before turning back to the Elf. "You have heard we mean no harm and you have seen we cannot lie. We have business in Lorien."

"What errand is that that requires you to consort with beasts?"

"Dragons are also creatures of Manwe."

"They are the beasts of Morgoth," the Elf insisted. Glarlauk growled menacingly.

"Stop! That is enough!" Ilayilia shouted. She glared between the Elven guard and the dragon. "Why can you two races never get along? You could learn so much from each other!"

"From an amlug?" the Elf scoffed.

"From a two-leg?" Glarlauk snorted at the same time.

"In case you hadn't noticed, amlug nin," (_My Dragon_) the woman sighed, pressing her fingers to her tired eyes. "I have two legs." She turned back to the guard and met his grey eyes. "May we enter, or shall we send our regrets to your Lady? Our business concerns my late brother."

The Elven guard considered this for a moment, then gestured for someone to join him. A younger looking Elf, with silvery blond hair and a guarded expression, stepping out from behind a tree.

"Haldir, athrabeth Brennil o tolsiniath min," (_Haldir, inform the Lady of our visitors_) he instructed his second-in-command. The younger Elf nodded, then vanished into the forest.

"Very neat," Glarlauk observed. "They wouldn't want intruders following him into the woods." The Elf guard glared with undisguised mistrust at the dragon.

"Indeed," he admitted sourly. "Your mistress spoke for both of you. I have yet to hear you deny us ill-will, amlug."

"Oh, I wish you as much ill-will as I can think of," Glarlauk assured him. "But it won't come from me. I will mind my manners if you do." Ilayilia unsuccessful attempted to stomp on the dragon's claws but he either did not feel or ignored her warning.

An awkward silence stretched between the three of them.

"How far will Haldir have to go?" the woman asked at last.

"It will take almost two days for him to go and return," the Elf guard said, breaking eye contact with Glarlauk.

"Tell me, may I know your name?" Ilayilia asked.

"I am called Kaisaan," the Elf told her. "And perhaps you can tell me something."

"What?" her tone was guarded and her eyes slightly suspicious.

"Firstly, why do you call yourself Aew?" he asked genially. "You certainly look like a bird in that tunic." Ilayilia laughed and a soft glow returned to her cheeks.

"The Wood-Elves called me Aew when I was a child," she smiled. "I came to them and learned to sing at their feet."

"Ah, that is well. The Dark-Elves do enjoy song," Kaisaan inclined his head. "My second question: how did you come to Lorien, unarmed, with only a dragon for protection?"

"I would prefer to tell that story only once," Ilayilia had become serious again and her smile had fled.

"Come, if we must linger let it be in open air," Glarlauk said, nudging the woman gently.

"You have entered the Realm of the Lady of the Wood," Kaisaan warned them firmly. "You cannot go back."

"Is that a threat?" the dragon growled, baring his teeth.

"Yes," the guard said simply as a score of Elven archers stepped out from every side, arrows aimed at Glarlauk.

"No!" Ilayilia shouted, once again trying to place herself between the dragon and the threat. "We will not leave the sight of the trees. Does that satisfy you?"

"No," Kaisaan told her firmly.

"Would you rather have a dragon under your roof?" The Elves hesitated, their bowstrings loosened slightly. Ilayilia raised her hands and took off her Elven headdress. Its gold chains clinked slightly as she handed it to Kaisaan.

"Is this precious to you?" The Elf guard asked, turning the piece over in his hands.

"I would not leave it," she assured him.

"Fine. But you will stay no more than two score paces beyond the trees," he agreed grudgingly, tucking the headdress under one arm. The Elves followed the two with suspicious eyes as they turned and went back into the open space.


	20. Wise Celeborn

**Wise Celeborn**

For two days they lingered in the grassy field. Ilayilia ate little, but she had not eaten much since coming into Glarlauk's care. The dragon basked in the sun, his black scales soaking up warmth that lingered long into the night. Ilayilia almost suggested lighting a fire again, but the only source of wood was the trees of Lorien and she dared not touch them.

One evening, as she picked at the shell of a walnut, Glarlauk stretched with a yawn. He pushed his front legs forward and arched his back like a cat.

"It's been almost three days," the dragon remarked, settling down and looking up at the shadowy mountains.

"Yes," she replied simply.

"Do you really think they'll come through with it?"

"We have to trust them."

"You go ahead and trust them. I'll be right here." Glarlauk snorted.

"Why are you so irritated?" Ilayilia sighed, flicking some bits of the nutshell with a bored expression.

"I'm hungry!" the dragon snarled. He stood and began to pace, his eyes burgundy irritated. He sat and began to claw the grass up, tearing long gashes in the field.

"Stop that!" she snapped, then sighed and let her head drop into her hands. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Leave," Glarlauk suggested bluntly. "Put this miserable place to our tail."

"I don't have a tail," Ilayilia replied absent-mindedly. She looked up at the darkening sky and took a deep breath. "By the rising of the moon. If there's no word by the rising of the moon, we will leave."

Glarlauk snarled in frustration and began to circle himself before settling down in the grass.

"This space is too small," he grumbled, tucking his legs beneath him neatly. "I can't even groom myself here." Ilayilia had seen the dragon groom himself a few times before: it was an odd combination of human traits (like picking his teeth clean with one claw) and feline ones (smoothing down the scales of his face with the back of his claws). Some were small and did not require much space, others had taken up almost the entire cave.

"You look fine," she assured the vain creature.

"I don't want to look fine," he whined. "I want to look better than fine! And I want a herd of mountain goats right now!"

"You sound like a child," someone remarked dryly. Ilayilia spun around to see Kaisaan standing in the shelter of the trees, the Elf's mouth twisted as he looked at the dragon. "Lady Aew," he said with a bow to her. "We are ready for you now."

She stood and brushed of her doeskin breeches and Griffin Tunic. She would have liked to change over the past few days, but the small space accorded them had barely granted any privacy. Ilayilia went to meet Kaisaan, Glarlauk close behind.

"We?" she asked the Elven guard as they went into the forest together.

"Yes. Galadriel sends her apologies but Lord Celeborn himself has ridden out to meet you," Kaisaan informed her. "It is a rare honor. I am sorry that the necessary preparations caused such a delay." The dragon snorted, his head high and annoyed brown eyes scanning the trees.

The Elf halted and grabbed Ilayilia's arm his grey eyes threatening.

"Tell your amlug to behave itself in front of Celeborn," he warned. "We don't want any incidents."

"There won't be," the woman said coldly, slipping from his hold and stepping back to stand beside Glarlauk. The dragon flashed a triumphant smile at the disgruntled guard.

They had come to a clearing. A small pavilion had been set up there, made of white cloth with elegant vines painted along its edges. A flag fluttered from its peak, of a white swan sailing upon a blue field.

The flap of the tent was pulled open by the younger guard, Haldir, and Lord Celeborn emerged. He was tall and austere, his hair silvery white and shining softly in the glow he carried like a cloak about him. He wore gleaming armor, like that of the guard, and he carried a sword at his side.

His radiance made Ilayilia feel very self conscious, and she was glad that she had at least combed her hair. The woman cast a side-long glance at Glarlauk. The dragon only had eyes for the Elven Lord, so apparently Celeborn was beautiful enough to earn his attention. Ilayilia hoped it would be enough to earn the dragon's respect.

"Mae Govannen Ilayilia Aew, muinthel Anduin Caun, iell Alenor ah hil Calenor," (_Welcome Ilayilia the Bird, the sister of Anduin the Valiant, the daughter of Alenor and the heir of Calenor_) Celeborn greeted her gravely. The woman bowed her head respectfully. "Ah lle, Glarlauk Moramlug, Agarwaen." (_And to you, Glarlauk the Black Dragon, Bloodstained_).

The dragon said nothing, merely bowing his great head under the Elf lord's gaze. "We have much to discuss," Celeborn said. He turned and went back into the pavilion. Kaisaan followed and gestured for them to do so as well. Haldir seemed to flinch a little as Glarlauk moved closer and he incredulously compared the tent flap against the dragon.

Glarlauk was not daunted, he simply lay down and pushed his head through the door. It bothered him slightly to not be able to see any threats to the rest of his body, but it would have bothered him more to miss the conversation.

The interior was fairly plain: with white walls and the forest floor upon which a few elegantly carved chairs and a table stood. A silver pitcher and two goblets sat on the table.

"You know, from the moment I saw you, there was no doubt in my mind who you were," Celeborn was telling Ilayilia. The Lord and woman had taken seats facing each other while Kaisaan stood at ease behind Celeborn's chair. "You look so like your brother."

"We both take after our father," the woman agreed, inclining her head.

"Of course the hair and eyes," Celeborn continued. "But there is a delicateness I suspect comes from your mother. Your brother had that same genteel, graceful look: one would have called it softness if he had not been so strong in manner. But I suspect you are not here to speak of Anduin."

"No, my lord," Ilayilia said. Celeborn nodded and Kaisaan poured them each a cup of water from the pitcher. "But I have come on a related errand." So she set about explaining the task assigned to her by Elrond and Celeborn listened quietly. When she had finished the Elf lord turned to Glarlauk.

"And what about you, Master Amlug?" he asked. "Why have you come?"

"Ilayilia is my two-leg," the dragon said, surprised at the sudden shift of attention. "We go together."

"Why is that?" Glarlauk, stunned and not a little confused, stared at the Elf with large yellow eyes. "It is not in the manner of a dragon to become attached to our kind," Celeborn explained, lacing his fingers together and examining Glarlauk's head. "Why have you chosen so to do?"

"Glarlauk and I have come into an arrangement of sorts," Ilayilia said, covering the dragon's silence. "We have an agreement."

"One's soul is hardly a bargaining chip," Celeborn remarked. Kaisaan remained still, his face blank and uninterested.

"I do not understand," the woman refused bluntly.

"You don't? Let me explain: you pretend to be Agarwaen's mistress, but in reality you are his pawn. I cannot doubt that anything you have told me is untrue, the Griffin Tunic assures me of that, but I can wonder at what you choose not to tell," the lord said quietly. Ilayilia and Glarlauk traded uneasy looks.

"I can promise you that there is nothing more to the errand than what I have told you," she began tentatively.

"How, exactly, did you get Agarwaen to agree to come on this trip with you?" Celeborn pressed. Neither of them answered. The Elf sighed and stood up.

"Your brother was a magnificent man," he said quietly as he began to pace around the room. "A great warrior, a fierce friend, and a talented healer. Did you know that he used to carry a bag of herbs with him? It was small, silvery-blue, with scores of pockets containing every healing herb known to Elves and Men. When he died, the bag was given to one of his companions."

"Why do you tell me this?" Ilayilia asked, turning her face away as she struggled to hold back tears.

"Because he would not have wanted you to end up like this," Celeborn stopped and grasped the edge of the table. "He would have died rather than see you a slave." Silence reined for a long time. Kaisaan and Glarlauk surveyed each other with undisguised dislike and disgust while Celeborn tired unsuccessfully to meet Ilayilia's eyes.

"Well, he wouldn't have to," she said at last, standing. "Because he is already dead. They are all dead: Calenor, Anduin, my father. That noble line is ended. My husband is a scion of Elendil, my son will take after him. The days of heros and fairy-tales are over. There are no more knights to come to the rescue. There are no friends greater than the one who was once my enemy."

With these words Ilayilia turned her back on Celeborn and Kaisaan. Glarlauk backed out of the tent just before she pushed her way through the flaps. The woman left the forest and did not once look back for she did not want any to see the tears that now flowed freely down her cheeks.

The dragon watched her go, knowing that she did not wish to be followed.

And so for a week Ilayilia wandered over the bracken that lay between Lothlorien and the Misty Mountains. She ate hardly at all, drank little, and slept even less until at last, consumed by grief, she lay down in the loam and slept deeply.

It was then that Glarlauk found her and, cradling her to his chest, he brought her back to Lorien and into the care of Celeborn.


	21. Dragon Song

**Dragon Song**

Ilayilia woke to the feeling of sunlight caressing her face and kissing her eyelids. She was aware of the rustling of leaves and hushed voices.

"Welcome back, tithen pin," (_little one_) a soft voice murmured. Ilayilia opened her eyes and saw a beautiful woman leaning over her. It was an Elf, with long golden hair and bright grey eyes and that same light the Celeborn wore.

"Are you... Galadriel?"

"No," the Elf smiled and moved out of sight. Ilayilia tried to sit up but her vision swam and she sank back onto the pillows. She was in a bed and lying between soft sheets. "My name is Lathien. Galadriel and Celeborn are my parents."

"How did I get here?" There was the sound of water pouring and Lathien passed Ilayilia a cup. The Elf helped her to sit, propping up pillows behind her back.

"Glarlauk brought you," the Elf smiled. Ilayilia took a tentative sip and then suddenly found that she was extremely thirsty. "He was most upset."

"Where is he now?" She drained the cup and passed it back to Lathien.

"He is near," the Elf assured her, filling the cup once more. "Galadriel spoke with him. She will speak to you as well, when you are well enough."

Ilayilia looked around her. Golden light filtered down through the leaves and illuminated the place. She lay in a bed in some sort of loft that was nestled in the trees. Lathien handed her the water again and gestured for her to drink it slowly.

"You should not have run away," Lathien scolded her gently. "You should not have hid your grief so long."

"What happened?"

"It consumed you," the Elf looked troubled as she recalled the state Ilayilia had been in when Agarwaen had given the woman over to her father. "You did not eat, you would not drink, and you could not sleep. Such grief is... terrible to bear."

"But... I've known my brother was dead for years now," Ilayilia argued feebly.

"Then it would be all the more powerful," the Elf told her. "You should rest now. My mother will wish to speak with you soon. Peace." Lathien lay a hand on Ilayilia's brow and the woman felt a dark sleep wash over her senses.

When she next awoke, Glarlauk's head was looming over her. Ilayilia stifled a startled scream as she sat upright. Lathien was there: still or again, the woman could not tell. The dragon was apparently sitting on the ground and looking into the talan.

"Are you better?" he asked, his eyes lavender with concern.

"I think so," she said. The woman noticed that the griffin feathers she had bound upon Glarlauk's brow were gone but before she could inquire why, Lathien shooed the dragon away.

"Galadriel will see you now," the Elf told her. Lathien helped her to get dressed in the blue gown Glarlauk liked so much. Then she led her along a trail of narrow platforms built into the trees and to a resplendent doorway of white wood. Lathien knocked, then departed and left Ilayilia to face the Lady of Light alone.

The first thing that struck Ilayilia about Galadriel was that she looked very much like her daughter. But there while there was a softness about Galadriel, her grey eyes held sorrow and wisdom that Lathien did not yet know.

"Come in, little Aew," the lady said with a small smile. "It is well to see you awake."

"What happened to me?" Ilayilia asked yet again. Galadriel's smile faded and she looked over the woman with intense scrutiny.

"You fell into shadow," the lady said, her voice distant. "Beyond light and life, beyond care and will. Only one thing kept you from the Halls of Mandos..."

"What is that?" Ilayilia asked when Galadriel paused, her eyes fixed on something the woman could not see.

"You have a task to complete," the Elf said, coming back to the present and glancing over at Ilayilia.

"To heal the earth, you mean?" Galadriel moved forward and placed a hand on Ilayilia's heart.

"To heal this," she said. "Mother, brother, father, husband, son. You have lost much, little Aew. Elrond looked into your future and he saw you mending the wounds of Arda, but will you lose yourself along the way?" Ilayilia turned her head away, trying to dispel the tears pricking at her eyes, but Galadriel grabbed her chin firmly and lifted her head. "Tears are no evil, child. When the soul is hurt, weeping is its way of recovering."

So Ilayilia cried, letting forth the well of her grief and sorrow. Galadriel took the woman into her arms when Ilayilia began to feel that her very tears would wash her away.

"I've lost everyone!" she sobbed. "Everything I ever loved!"

"I can still see hope," Galadriel soothed.

"Then I am blind to it," Ilayilia trembled in the Lady's arms. "How can there be hope?"

"The Moramlug Glarlauk," Galadriel told her. The woman pulled away, wiping away the last tears.

"He does not love me," she argued. "Nor I him."

"I think if you had seen the dragon when he first brought you to Celeborn," the Elf argued. "You would not say such."

Ilayilia's bare feet scuffed over the forest floor. Glarlauk sat at the edge of a pool of clear water. She came near and sat on the ground beside him, leaning against his warm scales.

"You worried me," the dragon chastised her.

"I'm sorry," the woman apologized in a small voice. "I don't know what came over me..."

"Hmph," Glarlauk rustled his wings. "Just don't do it again."

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"On a griffin." The dragon seemed satisfied by this and he let the lavender in his eyes fade into a contented gold.

"You know, you've sung for me many times, but I've never sung for you," Glarlauk remarked.

"I didn't know you could sing," Ilayilia said, surprised.

"Well, it's different than you," the dragon admitted modestly. "Go and bring me a piece of wood and I'll show you how." Ilayilia went around the edge of the pool, and brought back the slender branch of a mallorn tree.

"Will this do?" she asked, laying it in front of the dragon. He picked it up delicately and examined it.

"Yes, this will be fine," he told her. Ilayilia sat beside Glarlauk as the dragon closed his eyes and began to sway his head slight.

He had been right: for the dragon did not sing with words as humans did, but with a ringing whistle that grew and then faded into a tumbling hum. But in that haunting melody, Ilayilia could almost hear the thunder and whisper of words:

"_When gripping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppresses, _

_then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress."_

And as the dragon sang, the wood began to twist and form. His music carved it and smoothed its surfaces, so that while wind disturbs smooth water his voice was like a wind that calms the ruffled surface.

The wood began to mold and take a form. It was slender and smooth, tapering at one end so that when Glarlauk finished, the wood formed a seamless horn.

Ilayilia picked up the horn and marveled over it. The wider end was in the form of a pony's head, its mouth open in a soundless call and its mane swirling back.

"Try it," Glarlauk encouraged her. Ilayilia put her lips to the mouthpiece and blew softly. To her surprise, it was not music that came forth, but the soft braying of horses.

"This is magic!" she whispered, staring at the horn and the dragon who sang it into being.

"Perhaps," Glarlauk shrugged his wings elegantly. "Perhaps the dragons have not forgotten everything."

"Thank you, my friend," Ilayilia told him. The dragon looked down at her, his eyes molten gold.

"You are welcome... my friend."

A/N: Can someone tell me where the words of Glarlauk's song come from? Here's a hint: it's Shakespeare!


	22. The Foul Eastern Wind

A/N: I wasn't going to update until someone guessed where the line from "Dragon's Song" came from, but no one has, so... The quote is from Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5.

To LuciansLycanNightShade: (By the way, your name is quite a mouthful. If I ever answer you again, I shall have to call you LLNS. Hope you don't mind.) Of course there's more. There's always more. You may have noticed that Glarlauk mentioned Smaug's death earlier. This story is set right after the Hobbit. The first story in this set, _The Heir of Calenor_, was set right before the Hobbit and the third story, _The Legacy of Calenor_, was set during the War of the Rings.

**The Foul Eastern Wind**

They lingered in Lorien for nearly a month, for it was beautiful there. And the Galadhrim came to accept the dragon's presence among them. Glarlauk had become quieter and less wont to angry outbursts because he admired Galadriel and Celeborn greatly, both for their beauty and their wisdom.

But the time came when the dragon grew impatient and he desired to be gone form the woods. So Ilayilia prepared to depart and Galadriel gave her a small box filled to the brim with thick, black soil.

"Use it sparingly," she warned. "For it is the soil of Lothlorien and is strong."

And so it was that when Ilayilia and Glarlauk departed Lorien they were considered friends of the Galadhrim, who had named the dragon Herdir Angul: Master of Magic.

But on the second day of travel after having departed Lorien, Ilayilia suddenly became aware of a terrible stench. Holding a hand to her nose she retched slightly.

"Can't you smell that?" she asked Glarlauk. The dragon moved his head this way and that and tried to inhale, but he smelled nothing odd.

"What is it?" Ilayilia choked, trying to cover her mouth and nose with a piece of cloth. "It smells so foul!"

"I don't smell a thing!" Glarlauk said worriedly, sniffing the air around Ilayilia. "What does it smell like?"

"Rot," she gasped. "And decay!" After a while the stench died away and Ilayilia was left in peace for a time. But when they had settled down for the night, the smell once more invaded her nostrils and threatened to make her lose her supper.

"It's on the East wind!" she realized, pushing a cloth against her face to block the stench. Glarlauk still could not scent anything odd, but Ilayilia was forced to tie the cloth as a veil across her face.

"I don't like it," the dragon grumbled.

"The fact that you can't see my face? Or the fact that I won't be able to sing?" the woman retorted. The cloth did not completely block out the stench and she felt very cross.

"That you can smell something I can't," he insisted. "I'm supposed to have the better senses. What if I'm losing them?"

"Does everything else smell the same to you?"

"Yes."

"Then I wouldn't worry," she gagged. "You aren't missing out on anything."

They flew over Mirkwood, keeping close to its boarders so that when the camped at night they could settle down a safe distance from the black woods. Ilayilia ate better than she had for months and slept more. Glarlauk did not push himself so hard anymore, and he hunted well in the dark trees.

But whenever the wind blew from the East it carried a foul stench that only the woman could smell and so she took to wearing the veil at all times. It was a blue veil of heavy cloth and she hung it across her nose and mouth, its ends held securely by her golden headpiece.


	23. The Rhun Village

**The Rhun Village**

The Rhun was a blackened wasteland. All grass and living things upon it had been stricken by some blight or curse and they lay upon the ground in rotting heaps. The filth was now knee deep in some areas, choking off any good soil from the sunlight. The wind blew over this land, carrying away the smell that had plagued Ilayilia for days.

"Is this what the East wind saw?" Ilayilia whispered as she and Glarlauk stood at the edge of the barren waste. "Is this the death she foretold? As she ran across the wide fields, did she shed a tear for this? When she came to bring this scent to me, did she mean this? Is this, this what the East wind saw?"

The smell was very nearly unbearable for her, but Glarlauk caught sight of a small village of huts only about a mile away.

"How can they stand to live here?" the woman asked as they made their way to the village. It consisted of a few squalid hovels that cowered low to the ground. Dogs, rake-thin and snarling viciously, came out to growl at Ilayilia and Glarlauk. The dragon rumbled, fire building up in his throat, but she put a restraining hand on him.

"No," she warned. Then she knelt, heedless of the muck that threatened to ruin her red gown, and held out a hand to the dogs. "Sidh, tirith ryn!" (_Peace, guard hounds!_) she commanded. At once the dogs quieted, and approached with wagging tails and low whines.

Villagers, dirty and suspicious, peered out from between the hovels. Children stared at the dragon in awe, but the adults regarded him with fear. Ilayilia and Glarlauk advanced slowly and she kept one hand on his black side.

"We mean no harm," she told them. "We want to help you." The people stared uncomprehendingly at her.

"Perhaps they do not speak Westron," Glarlauk suggested. Ilayilia nodded and repeated the greeting in Elvish, but there still came no flicker of recognition. Finally a man, broad and bearded, stepped forward. He had the air of a leader about him and his mouth was a thin, grim line.

"Sen kimsin?" the man demanded.

"What did he say?" Glarlauk asked.

"I've no idea," Ilayilia confessed. "I'm afraid I don't understand you," she told the man.

"Sen kimsin?" he asked again. "Sen ne istersin?" The woman looked at Glarlauk hopelessly.

"I am Ilayilia," she tried, placing a hand to her chest. She pointed to the dragon and added, "This is Glarlauk." The man frowned and looked at the dragon, but he seemed satisfied with her answer.

"Ben olurum Lider," he replied.

"I wish I knew what he was telling us," Glarlauk grumbled. "For goodness sake, he could be cursing our names!"

"We want to help," Ilayilia ignored the dragon and spoke very slowly and clearly. She pointed to herself again, then over the black fields nearby. The spokesman frowned and shook his head before babbling a string of incomprehensible words.

"I don't understand," she said, shaking her head sadly. A small boy with dark brown hair and wide dark eyes, ran to the man who put a hand on the boy's head and gave him a grim smile.

"Is that your son?" she asked.

"Bu olur Haradum," the man smiled at the boy fondly. Ilayilia shook her head and sighed.

"Lider," the man said, pointing to himself. Then he pointed to the boy and said, "Haradum."

"Ilayilia," she replied, her eyes lighting up as she pointed to herself and then to the dragon. "Glarlauk." The boy, Haradum, walked forward tentatively, staring at her with undisguised wonder. Ilayilia bent down as the boy came close and blinked as his grubby fingers touched her eyelashes. Haradum said something in his language and gave her a gapped-tooth grin. Then he turned and looked at Glarlauk with amazement. Ilayilia picked the boy up and lifted him to the bent down and studied the child with a curious indigo eye.

Ilayilia set Haradum down and he went back to his father, shouting something that caused the villagers to laugh slightly.

"Içerde gel," the man said, gesturing Ilayilia and Glarlauk forward. The two looked at each other, then entered the village. It was a collection of twelve huts made of tent poles with animal hides stretched over them. In the middle was a sort of communal cooking fire where the dogs scavenged and goats wandered aimlessly.

That night Ilayilia and Glarlauk were fed by the villagers with the scant rations they had available. There was flat bread that was round and broad, served with a creamy white cheese made of goat's milk, and accompanied by a soup of chicken and almonds. All the time the people babbled to Ilayilia in their odd language. She was given the largest servings of everyone, but it was painfully obvious that there was not a lot of food in the village.

Haradum had apparently taken on the responsibility of teaching Ilayilia the language. He sat on her lap and pointed towards different objects, telling her their name which she dutifully recited in her language and then his.

"Goat: teke. Dog: köpek," she repeated. "Fire: yakmak. Stone: taş." The people began to pull out drums and pipes.

"Müzik!" Haradum exclaimed, bouncing up and down in excitement. Ilayilia smiled and needed no translation.

The people sang and danced to the beat of the drum. The musicians also danced around the fire, their bare feet pounding out another rhythm. Haradum and the other children twirled with them, laughing. Even the dogs caught the cheerful tone and they barked happily, frisking around with tongues lolling. When they finished everyone sat down, smiling broadly and talking cheerfully.

"Senin siran," Haradum's father, Lider, insisted.

"Me?" Ilayilia asked, caught completely off guard. Haradum nodded and clapped his hands to encourage her. She looked to Glarlauk for support but the dragon merely chuckled and gave her a gently push.

"They won't understand the words," she told the dragon.

"It won't matter," he assured her.

"Müzik! Müzik!" Haradum begged. Ilayilia hesitated, then began to sing. A hush fell over the village as they listened to her voice, utterly entranced.

"My lady is fine, she dresses all in green

Her eyes are like stars, the moon upon the sea

She wears a white kerchief, she got it from me

And if she did burn it, I'll know what that means

Come no more my love, come no more to me

I've given my heart to another man

So come no more to my window at night

For I have it shuttered and it latched tight.

It is not that you have offended me

Nor has any member of your fine clan

But truth to be told, at the come of light

I'm to be wedded in cottage of thatch.

My lady was fine, she dressed all in green

Her eyes were like stars, the moon on the sea

She wore a white kerchief, she got it from me

And she did burn it, so I know what that means."

Everyone in the village was quiet for a moment, then they burst into cheers and applause. Ilayilia could understand their compliments no more than they understood the words she had sung. When the children began to yawn and were carried off to bed, Lider began to pass around a bottle of strong smelling liquor. Ilayilia sniffed it then passed it on without tasting it. She smiled at Lider and gestured to her throat, trying to convey that the drink would be bad for her voice.

"Bizim için daha faziasi!" Lider shouted happily and took another swig of the liquor.

"I believe he means 'more for the rest of us'," Glarlauk smiled.

"Certainly none for you," Ilayilia mock-scolded him. "Could you imagine what would happen to you if you drank that?"

"The word 'boom' comes to mind, yes," the dragon shrugged elegantly. She laughed softly and leant back against his thick hide.

"I wonder how you say 'boom' in their language," she murmured as sleep began to ebb over her.

"I hope we never find out," he said dryly.

A/N: "The White Kerchief" is copyrighted by me.

Rhunic is based loosely off of Turkish. I know that I usually put translations directly after, but that is generally when the main character can understand what is being said. In this case, Ilayilia is unable to understand what they are saying until later, so you will have to wait until the end of the chapter as well. Deal with it.

(Translations:

Sen kimsin _Who are you?_

Sen ne istersin _What do you want?_

Ben olurum Lider _I am called Lider._

Bu olur Haradum _This is Haradum._

Içerde gel _Come inside._

Müzik _Music._

Senin siran _Your turn._

Bizim için daha faziasi _More for us._)


	24. The Goddess and the Earth

**The Goddess and the Earth**

Ilayilia woke at dawn and found herself alone by the smoky embers of last night's fire. Glarlauk was awake as well, eyeing the herd of goats hungrily.

"Don't eat the nice little tekes," she yawned. "Or whatever the plural of goat is." She stood and stretched, shaking off the last remnants of sleep. Ilayilia wandered over to the edge of the village and stood between two of the tents, or çadir, and looked out at the blackened land.

"How are we supposed to do this?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know," Glarlauk admitted. "I honestly don't know." She sighed and began to walk across the field. The dragon noticed that the woman still did not have shoes. They came to the edge of the blackened land and stared out over it, lost in the horror of its existence.

"O olur kara Karayi Çagirdi." Lider had followed them. He looked out over the wasteland with a hard, grim expression. "Ilenç Karasi."

"I don'y understand," Ilayilia sighed. "What caused this?" She lifted her left foot and held it above the soil.

"True! Ilenç Karasi!" Lider repeated, waving his hands to try and stop her. But the woman put her foot down and it sank into the rotting soil with a disgusting squelch.

"That's nasty," Glarlauk snorted. She began to walk across the waste, her feet sticking in the ground as though it were thick mud. The dragon hesitated and then followed her, grimacing as he waded through the muck.

"I dread grooming myself," he commented, looking down at his filth covered feet. Ilayilia turned and gave him a smile, but then something behind him caught her eye.

"What on Arda...?" she asked, moving towards him curiously.

"What is it?" Glarlauk twisted and tried to see was Ilayilia was looking at.

"Don't move!" she ordered and the dragon stood still. Lider, wearing thick boots with wooden soles, came out to join the woman as she inspected the ground behind Glarlauk. In the dragon's deep footprints, tiny green stems were pulsing and unfurling. Little leaves began to uncurl and soak in the sunlight hungrily as their stems attempted to curl over Glarlauk's tail.

"Get them off me!" the dragon hissed in alarm. But Ilayilia crouched down and held out a hand. The plants turned toward her, hugging her arm in their green embrace. The woman pulled her arm away, and the plants slid easily off.

"Manadh!" Ilayilia remembered, recalling the story Elrond had told her of when Anduin had ventured in this part of the world. "The blessings of Yavannah!"

"Man-a-dh," Lider repeated clumsily. He would not bend down to touch the plants, but regarded them with a mixture of interest and trepidation. Ilayilia scooped her hand into the soil and dug up an enormous tuber. She broke this open and gave a piece to Lider. He looked at it uncomprehendingly, so Ilayilia pinched a small bit off and ate it. Lider hesitated, then did the same.

"Get plows," she smiled as his eyes widened in delight. Lider seemed to understand, for her squelched out of the field and back to his village, shouting and waving his arms. The people came out, looking as though they had just woken up.

Soon the entire village was out in the blackened land. They only had one ramshackle plow between them, but almost everyone wielded shovels with great enthusiasm.

They began to dig, exposing the good soil beneath the bad and wherever the soil came into contact with the sun, Manadh plants sprang up.

The villagers began to laugh, throwing open their arms to the sun. Children lay down and allowed the green stems to curl over them. Lider stood up and began to give some sort of speech in his language, pointing occasionally to Ilayilia. The people turned wondering eyes on her and came close.

"What are they doing?" Glarlauk asked, ready to growl and send them away. But they simply extended their hands and touched Ilayilia, their eyes filled with wonder and gratitude.

"Onlar senin bir Tanriça oldugunu söyler," Haradum told her, bowing his head respectfully.

"I don't know what you're saying," she began feebly, feeling overwhelmed by the villagers' attention. Haradum was apparently trying to explain: he pointed at her, and then at the sky, and then back to her all the while saying, "Tanriça, Tanriça."

"Goddess?" Ilayilia asked, suddenly realizing. "You think I am a goddess? No, you're mistaken, I'm just..."

"You can hardly blame them," Glarlauk interrupted. "You appear from nowhere with a great dragon and wearing the most unusual clothes. And as soon as you walk over the wasteland, flowers spring up!"

"Flowers?" she asked, frowning. When she looked back at the Manadh she saw that tiny yellow and white blossoms were indeed opening their petals to the sun.

The soil beneath the rotting layer was good, wet and brown. The plow, rusted as it was, cut an easy line through the soil, tossing Manadh plants hither and thither with a great rip.

"This is good land," Ilayilia told Glarlauk later that day. "Never before has it been plowed. So how did the Manadh get there?"

"Perhaps your goddess, Yavannah, scattered its seeds," the dragon shrugged, shooing away some of the dogs. "And they were just waiting for the right moment to grow... Or maybe you're the goddess," he suggested, eyes twinkling with an amused blue shade.

"Shut up," she muttered, embarrassed. The villagers had continued to look at her with that awed gaze, and it made her uncomfortable. "It's blasphemous to say such things."

(Translations:

O olur kara Karayi Çagirdi _It is called the Black Land_

Ilenç Karasi _The Cursed Land_

True! Ilenç Karasi! _No! Cursed Land!_

Onlar senin bir Tanriça oldugunu söyler _They say you are a Goddess._

Tanriça, Tanriça. _Goddess, Goddess._)


	25. Returning West

**Returning West**

Ilayilia and Glarlauk remained in the village, Göçebe, for about three months. In that time, Ilayilia learned their language. It was a laborious process, for the words were so different from the Northern language, Westron, and Elvish. In the end, she only learned about half of the words and Haradum learned half of her language.

It was enough, however, for her to explain to Lider how he must go about planting the next spring. Ilayilia was not a farmer, except of horses, but together they figured out how to clear the rotten soil and replant the Manadh with wheat and corn. Göçebe had a few sacks of seed, courtesy of their trading with other villages with their goat's milk.

But nothing Ilayilia said could convince the people of Göçebe that she was not a goddess.

"Yok Tanriça," (_Not goddess_) she told the women, who would bow when she walked past. "Just... kadin. Just a woman." But by the end of the three months, some of the villagers had made carvings of Ilayilia and of Glarlauk.

"Durmasini onlara söyle!" (_Tell them stop!_) she begged Haradum. "Dogru degil. Blasphemous!" (_Not right._)

"Cannot stop," Haradum told her. "Tanriça. Sen karayi iyileştirdin."

"What?" she sighed, for sometimes the longer words evaded her.

"You healed the land of hurt," the boy explained. "Karayi Çagirdi. Ilenç Karasi." (_Bad land. Cursed land_). Ilayilia stared at him in amazement, his words slowly registering, echoing through the past to awaken another memory:

"_Someone needs to heal the land," Elrond lifted the woman up and met her eyes. "To go to the four corners of the world and remove the blemishes of Morgoth's evil."_

"_As soon as I saw you with the Amlug," Elrond insisted. "I knew the two of you would heal the land."_

The woman shivered slightly.

Ilayilia and Glarlauk agreed to leave with the coming of autumn. It seemed that even the vain dragon was uncomfortable seeing the graven images of himself. The villagers had carved small statuettes of the veiled woman and the dragon, along with pressed images on rounds of clay.

The villagers of Göçebe wept on the day Ilayilia and Glarlauk prepared to leave. The woman's food pack was overly replenished, bulging with Manadh, goat cheese, and bread.

"Allahaismarladik, benim insanlarim kurtaricisi," Lider told her, raising a hand in salute. Ilayilia looked to Haradum who translated.

"My father says, 'Goodbye, savior of my people'," Haradum told her. Ilayilia blushed and fumbled uncomfortably with her bag.

"Tell him goodbye," she mumbled. Haradum turned to his father and returned the blessing. With that, Glarlauk lifted Ilayilia and spread his black wings with a sigh.

"It will be good to fly again," he told her as he jumped into the air. The villagers cheered and waved to the two of them as Glarlauk turned back West.

That night they camped beside Mirkwood and lit a fire. Ilayilia still wore her veil, for the East wind was strong tonight, and she looked back Eastward.

"We can go back," Glarlauk told her quietly. "We needn't continue on if your heart lies in the East." The woman remained silent and shook her head.

"I have a welcome there if I need it," she said at last. "But I do not wish to dwell as a false goddess on earth. I will not have that on my conscience when I stand before Mandos. Or Orome."

"Orome?" the dragon inquired as Ilayilia came and lay in the grass next to him. "Why would he judge you?"

"Because that is where the horses go at the end of their lives," she explained, her eyes on the stars. They picked out the constellation Morag where he pranced across the black sea. "My father told us that we could join them there, rather than go to Mandos."

"Would you?" Glarlauk asked after a pause. She began to cry softly, but unashamedly.

"If I could see my brother and Alfirin again," she admitted. "I would do anything." She took out the magic-carved horn and began to play softly. The sound of horses nickering to each other and neighing softly filled the night and then faded away without a trace. When Glarlauk looked down at the woman, she was asleep, the horn held loosely in her hand.

"I wonder what having a family feels like," the dragon mused, looking up at the wheeling stars. "I wonder what... love feels like."

For while Glarlauk felt fondness and pleasure, he could never feel love. Such is the curse of Melkor.


	26. The Shire

A/N: Okay, everyone. I hope you enjoy these chapters because they are my personal favorites!

**The Shire**

They passed around Mirkwood and over the Misty Mountains, traveling West and a little North. Ilayilia asked Glarlauk that they not stop in Lorien or Rivendell, but to push onwards. She had grown weary of traveling and wished to return North, and the dragon silently agreed. He had left his golden store unattended too long and feared that a rival dragon would take it.

And so, during the month of Winterfilth, Shire reckoning, Ilayilia and Glarlauk came to the boarders of a green and good land. They came upon it at night and settled in a dark forest.

"Are you sure about this?" Ilayilia asked, peering through the shadowy trees. "Something feels off about this place."

"I agree," Glarlauk said. They worked their way through the trees, alarmed by the creaks and groans that sounded all around them. At last they came to the edge of the forest and a great downs.

"Do you think it wise to start a fire?" Glarlauk asked, glancing back over his wing at the malevolent woods.

"Perhaps not," she consented, but she looked at the darkened downs fearfully.

"What did Elrond tell you about the inhabitants of this land?" the dragon asked, sitting down. Ilayilia huddled next to him and he wrapped his tail protectively around her.

"I think he said that the perians were comfort-loving and distrustful of outsiders," the woman recounted. "And that you probably shouldn't be seen by them, for they would be frightened."

"Hmph," Glarlauk snorted, "Distrustful of strangers? I'm not sure I want _you_ seen by them."

"Lord Elrond say they are a surprising but good-hearted folk," she assured him. "I'm not sure what he meant by surprising, but I'm told they had many good dealings with Men. I will not come to harm."

Glarlauk gave another snort, then tucked his head under his wing and fell asleep.

The next morning, Ilayilia entered the Shire on the East Road. She wore no shoes, but that did not seem unusual in this place, for all other travelers on the road had thick, hairy feet that they also wore unshod.

And such travelers Ilayilia had never seen! They were short, coming up no further than her hip (and although she was a fairly tall woman she had never outstripped others by so much, save children). They all had thick curly hair and pointed ears, like the Elves. The men wore fine, brightly colored waistcoats and the women wore patterned skirts with ribbons braided in their hair. But when placed under the perians' scrutiny, she was extremely glad she had worn her red dress rather than the Griffin Tunic.

She smiled and nodded to the passers-by and found that she received many side-long glances for all her efforts. It was very well that she had left Glarlauk behind in the downs.

Coming to a bridge, she crossed over a wide river and came to an intersection of two roads. As she stood there, undecided, a tiny perian child shot from one road and ran smack into her.

"Are you all right?" she asked, lifting the child up. He looked at her with huge green eyes, his mouth slightly open. Ilayilia saw that he had a scrape on his knee.

"Here," she said softly, sitting the child down and taking a piece of cloth from the worn brown bag she carried. The woman bandaged his knee and patted his coppery curls with a smile.

"Where's your mother, then?" she asked. The child wordlessly pointed down the road.

"Are you a princess?" he suddenly blurted out. Ilayilia gave a long, trilling laugh that caused the perian to blush fiercely.

"First goddesses, now princesses, whatever will Glarlauk say?" she remarked. "No, I'm not a princess. Now, come on and I'll help you find your mother." Taking the child's hand, she turned down the side road.

Sometimes she caught the little boy feeling the velvet cloth of her skirt. The emeralds twinkled in the child's green eyes, as did the green embroidered trees.

"Are you an Elf?" the perian asked.

"No," she giggled again. "I'm just a woman."

"Oh," he seemed slightly crestfallen. "Well, do you come from Bree?"

"No, I come from far to the north," she told him. "In a land called Brethil."

"Does everyone wear such nice clothes there?"

"No, only a few," she sighed, thinking of how her husband's good background hadn't kept her out of wool and linen.

The road was narrow, just wide enough for one pony and cart, and hedges loomed up on either side. Autumn had brushed its fingers over these and painted them with red and gold. Finally they came in sight of the chimneys of a small town.

"Is this where your mother is?" she asked the perian child. He nodded solemnly and pointed to one of the chimneys. When Ilayilia came closer, she realized that the chimneys came straight out of the ground. She wondered at this until they passed the first chimney and she realized that the perians must live in burrows beneath the hills.

"Curious," she remarked. The perians kept well-maintained gardens and small vegetable patches. At this time of year, large orange pumpkins filled the neat yards alongside yellow squash.

The child led her to a gate outside one of the houses and she went up the path with him. Bending down, she knocked on the round wooden door that had been painted a garish shade of pink.

The door was thrown open and a harassed looking female perian came out.

"Saradoc! Where have you been?" the woman snapped, taking the boy and cuffing him soundly around his pointed ears. "Worried sick, I've been! You just get yourself inside and take care of your sister. And don't you dare so much as look at that mince-pie that's for supper!" The child, Saradoc, scurried inside leaving his mother and Ilayilia on the doorstep.

"Oh, hello!" the perian said nervously. "Thank you so much for returning my son. Good lord, if his father knew...! I'm Menegilda, by the way. Menegilda Brandybuck."

"Ilayilia," the woman replied, shaking the perian's hand. "I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Tooktown?"

"Tooktown! Why, there's naught there!" Menegilda exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron. "Are you sure it's Tooktown you're after?"

"Fairly sure," Ilayilia said, a smile twitching across her lips.

"Well, it will take a fair bit of going to," the perian chewed her lip. "Tooktown you say?"

"Er, yes," Ilayilia nodded.

"Hmm, closest you'd get it Willowbottom, I'm afraid," Menegilda said. A crash came from the inside of her home. "Oi! Saradoc! That better not be my mince-pie!" she shouted.

"Excuse me, but Tooktown?" Ilayilia tried again.

"Oh, yes," Menegilda turned back to her and looked up. "Just continue on this road, dearie. Go right through Rushey and Deephallow. This road ends there, so you'll have to be taking a right. If your still after Tooktown when you get to Willowbottom, just ask around."

Another crash. "Saradoc, just wait till I tell your father!" Menegilda shouted. "You'll get a paddling for sure! Oh, excuse me Miss Ilayla," the perian said. "I've got to stop him from goodness knows what!"

"Ilayilia," she tried to correct, but Menegilda hurried into her home and shut the door behind her.

Ilayilia followed the Menegilda's directions and she soon learned that what was a "fair bit" for a perian was just a few hours walking distance. She stopped in Deephallow and confirmed the way and by an hour past noon she was in Willowbottom.

There was a fairly prosperous looking inn and so she went there. It was the first building she had seen in the Shire that was not built in or into the ground.

There was a busy courtyard filled with clucking and cackling chickens. A door off to the side was opened to reveal a hot kitchen where cooks were bustling over the midday meal. A sign over the main door advertised the inn as the "Cat and Mouse". Ilayilia crossed the yard and stooped to enter the tavern.

It was full of perians, bustling about and cooling off from a morning in the fields. They were grouped about tables, talking loudly and enjoying each others company. But when the woman entered, the entire tavern fell silent and all turned to look at her.

"Can I 'elp you?" the barkeep asked looking surprised and stopping mid-pour.

"I'm after a meal, friend," Ilayilia said. She wove her way to the tavern, keeping her head low so that she didn't bang it on the rafters.

"What'll you be havin'?" The barman asked, staring up at her.

"Um... whatever dish your patrons admire most." She had been right to set the perians on the subject of food, for it seemed that everyone had their own favorite dish to suggest.

"Rabbit pie, Homas!"

"No, give her the veg'table stew!"

"Don' be daft, its taters and mash she's after!" Finally the barkeep, Homas, served her the rabbit pie and a mug of the house ale. She gave him a few coins, then tucked in gratefully.

"So, where abouts are you from?" one of the perians asked, sidling up to her.

"Brethil, it's in the north," she told him, blowing to cool the pie off.

"Brethil? Are you knowing Master Alenor then?" Ilayilia almost spat out her mouthful of pie.

"How do you know of Alenor?" she asked, swallowing with difficulty.

"Oh, he used to come down here once a year," another perian recalled. "With a string of the finest ponies you ever did see. Stopped, oh, I don't know how long ago."

"Well nigh fifteen years!" Homas supplied.

"So you're knowing him?" the first perian insisted.

"Yes, he was my father."

"Well, fancy tha'!" he exclaimed. "Well, it is a small world indeed, if I may be saying so!"

"You may indeed!" another of the little people remarked. They were a jocular folk, but soon the time came that they had to return to their harvest and leave Homas and Ilayilia.

"There anything else I could interest you in, marm?" the perian asked, wiping down the bar. "A glass of wine, or maybe apple pie?"

"Actually, I was wondering how to get to Tooktown." The reaction was the same as Menegilda's.

"Tooktown, you say? Why, all that's left of that place is rocky soil and some abandoned houses!" the little barkeep remarked.

"Was it always like that?" Ilayilia inquired.

"Well, of course not!" Homas said, leaning against the bar. "Wouldn't be abandoned houses, now would there? No, used to be a time when Tooktown was the most prosperous of places hereabouts!"

"What happened?"

"Well, that's the thing, isn't it?" the perian exclaimed, collecting empty mugs and putting them in the sink. "No one knows what done it! We was worried for a time it would get worse, thought mayhaps it was some sort of blight or such! Anyways, no ones lived there for... well about eleven years, I reckon."

"I'd very much like to see it," Ilayilia insisted.

"Would you now?" Homas scratched his chin. "Well, I can find someone to take you up, if you'd like. Mind you, most of the lads are busy with harvest. Gurfa Took might, he used to live there, poor blighter. Along with his family."

"And where can I find this Gurfa?" she asked. Homas gave her directions and she left him to clean up the rest of the tavern.

Walking along between the golden wheat, Ilayilia watched the perians using sickles to harvest the crops. She paused outside one of the fields and leant against the split rail fence, watching the sun beat down on the little harvesters.

"Afternoon!" one of them called.

"Good afternoon," she nodded amiably. "Are you by any chance Gurfa?"

"That I am! Who's asking?" The perian straightened from his task and walked to where she stood, wiping the sweat off his brow. He had brown, curly hair and twinkling fawn eyes.

"I'm called Ilayilia," she replied.

"Hmm, that's quite a long name," the perian mused, setting aside his sickle. "Do you mind if I just call you Ilia?"

"Actually I do," she said, darkening slightly. "You see, that was my mother's name."

"Ah, sure an' don't I understand," Gurfa said sympathetically. "I'll just have to learn your full name, Miss Ilayla."

"Ilayilia," the woman corrected. "Actually, I heard that you might be able to take me over to Tooktown."

"Tooktown? Why would you be wanting to go to that God forsaken place?" Gurfa asked.

"I wish to see it," she replied simply. The perian looked at her shrewdly, then shrugged and ran a hand through his curls.

"Well, I suppose I can spare an afternoon," he mused.

"I'd hate to take you from your work," Ilayilia protested.

"That's what sons are for!" Gurfa laughed, gesturing toward two younger perians who were gathering and binding the cut grain. Gurfa ducked under the fence and jumped down the dank onto the road.

"So, where do you come from?" the inquisitive perian asked as they set off.

"Brethil, it's in the north," Ilayilia told him.

"Hmm, don't they have ponies there?"

"Yes!" she smiled. "Did you buy ponies from Alenor? He was my father, you see."

"One or two," Gurfa said. "Good plow horses. 'Course, he's not been down here for years. I used to have one, a little barrel of a pony, with the strangest name you ever did hear: Nidh."

"Nidh!" Ilayilia suddenly remembered. The pony, named Honeycomb in Elvish, had a sweet tooth.

"Spoiled little lard-tub," Gurfa recalled. "If you don't mind me saying so."

"Not at all!" she laughed. "I can't believe my father sold her to you!"

"Oh, your father wasn't the one what did the selling," Gurfa assured her. "Except that he'd set up a large horsefair in the Yale. Hobbits used to come from miles around to buy Alenor's ponies. He had a name for them... I don't recall..."

"The Rhaw Nur."

"Yes, that's the one!" the perian, hobbit, said. "Anyhow, someone up in Stock bought Nidh, then realized what a nightmare she was. Sold her to me, half-price, best deal I ever made! 'Course, I never seemed to have much sugar in me pantry afterwards." Ilayilia laughed with Gurfa, remembering the gluttonous little pony.

They walked for a time, but not in silence for hobbits enjoy talking and Gurfa was no exception. It was light talk, discussions of weather and crops and Gurfa's extensive family.

The road was no longer very well maintained. Grass grew up in the track, leaving only two thin wheel lines. The hedge had an untamed, wild look about it, having not been trimmed in years, and it closed in around the road with thin finger-like twigs.

"How long has it been since this road was used?" Ilayilia asked, her hair catching on one of the hedges.

"Coupla years," Gurfa said, stopping politely to wait for her. "We gave up going back to check on Tooktown a few years ago. Ah, here it is." They rounded a corner and came to where the little town had once lay.

There were hobbit holes, empty and cold with the doors thrown open revealing dark tunnels that looked like gaping throats. Gardens had overgrown, weeds chocking out any flowers or vegetables that had once grown there. The home nearest to the road had collapsed, the hill sliding in and crushing the home beneath.

Ilayilia and Gurfa walked through the houses, and the woman was struck by how quiet everything was.

"Where are the birds?" she asked, realizing what was missing.

"They up and left before the rest of us," Gurfa said, nudging a fallen fencepost. The wooden post lay on the ground like some warrior, fallen in the defense of his keep. They wandered through the abandoned town, occasionally stopping to peer into the dark homes. Ivy had grown up over one of the hobbit holes, covering the windows and the door until it appeared that the path ended abruptly in a wall of green. Gurfa turned aside at one yard and opened the gate gingerly. It swung forward with a rusty wheeze and the hobbit led Ilayilia up the gravel path.

A small round door, blue paint dirty and peeling from its boards, stood in the hillside. It had been fitted with a copper knocker, but what the shape had been the woman could not tell, for the bright surface had turned green and mottled.

Window boxes cowered beneath the dirty glass panes. Their bottoms had fallen out, leaving piles of soil beneath them and a few twisted, dried out roots. A wizened apple tree, bearing a few dry-looking fruits, overhung the path. Its trunk was twisted and bent and its leaves were few, giving the impression of a stooped old man.

Ilayilia could see the remains of a vegetable garden that lay in grim formation, like a row of tombstones, at the far end of the garden. A few broad pumpkin leaves had forced their way up, but these were shriveled and dehydrated. A mailbox, fallen from its perch, lay with broken sides, grass forming a living bower over it. She bent down and gently pulled a few stems aside, not wanting to disturb the mailbox's final rest.

A name had peen painted on the side, black letters faded over time.

"This was your house?" Ilayilia asked, standing. Gurfa stood by the door, a hand on its splintered and peeling face.

"Yes, this was my home," the hobbit admitted quietly. "Thirty long, wonderful years. My sons were born here, but they were too wee to remember when we moved."

"Gurfa," Ilayilia came and knelt before the hobbit so that she would be on eye-level with him. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she looked into his light brown eyes. "What happened?"

In answer, the hobbit led the way around the hill into which his home had been built. He followed some path that Ilayilia could not see and they same around the hill to an empty field. Gurfa strode across it confidently, and the woman followed, noticing how the rocks pushed up through the soil making an impassable barrier for any plow. They came to the edge of the unplanted field and Ilayilia gasped sharply at what lay ahead.

Once this had been a field, sown with what looked like barley or oats. New plants had sprung up, weeds that strangled the crop and soaked up stolen sunlight. For the first few meters that was all the damage, but beyond...

She walked through the rows, ignoring the scratchy touch of the dried and withered plants. The woman felt a head of grain, looking at the black spots that riddled its fruit.

"What happened?" she asked Gurfa yet again. The hobbit came out next to her, standing a row over.

"Nobody knows," Gurfa said, plucking one of the stalks and throwing it aside with evident disgust. "When it first came one, we thought it was a blight. Didn't seem to bad, at first. I just cut down the affected plants. But it kept spreading. It was spring-time, so me and my neighbors burnt the first crop and tried again. Only this time, there was no rain. Not a drop all spring and then summer. This field used to be barley and oats, that un behind us was sweet corn."

"It doesn't look like it was plowable," Ilayilia remarked, moving further into the black-speckled grain.

"Well, we stayed through that year," Gurfa said, following glumly. "Bought ourselves food and such from Pincup and Willowbottom. The next year when I put plow to soil, the rocks had come up. Don't make no sense, those rocks. Lived here five generations, never had rocks before."

"I think I've seen all I need to," Ilayilia told him kindly, seeing that these memories were hard for the little one.

"Yes, maybe if we go back now they'll be time for tea," the hobbit agreed, turning back toward the town.

"Tea?" the woman asked, her heart sinking. "Is it really that late?"

"It will be," Gurfa said, eyeing the sun expertly. "Why, were you thinking of heading somewhere?"

"Well, I left a friend outside the Shire," she said carefully. "And I'd hate for him to worry."

"Where outside?"

"I'm not exactly sure. It was a downs, near a forest..."

"Barrow-downs?" Gurfa asked, shocked and a little frightened. "Well, I can tell you, he's not there any longer! There's wraiths in those downs, they lure you down into the barrows and your never seen again. As for the forest, Old Man Willow don't take kindly to strangers."

"I think my friend will be able to take care of himself," Ilayilia said, recalling her fear last night. "It's just that he might worry."

"Well, it's too late to be heading back that way," Gurfa informed her. "Mayhap you could get one of the village boys to do it, one of my sons would."

"Oh, no, really, he'll be fine," Ilayilia said quickly, slightly horrified at the though of sending one of Gurfa's sons to Glarlauk. "I'll just stay as the Cat and Mouse tonight."

A/N: Fun Fact! Saradoc Brandybuck is actually Meriadoc Brandybuck's father!


	27. The Ceilidh

**The Ceilidh**

She returned to the inn and ducked once more inside. Homas was there, setting up for the dinner hour.

"Good evening, Miss!" the barkeep greeted her merrily. "Find Gurfa then?"

"Yes, he was very helpful," she said, slightly uncomfortable by having to bend down so in the room.

"So you went to Tooktown then! Find much?" When Ilayilia shook her head Homas smiled knowingly. "I didn't think you would, Miss," he told her with a wink.

"I'm actually interested in a room for the night," she told Homas.

"A room? Well, let's see," the barkeep pondered, moving a barstool back to its place. "I don't actually have any rooms for Men. We don't often get strangers in these parts..."

"A pallet on the floor is fine," Ilayilia assured him.

"Well, I've got one or two of the larger rooms I can fix up for you," Homas said quickly. "I'll just have Petunia set them up for you. Petunia!" the barkeep bellowed over his shoulder. A small red-faced maid scurried for the door that must lead to the kitchen.

"Set up a room for Miss..." Homas began, then trailed off.

"Ilayilia," the woman provided.

"Ilayla," the barkeep said. Ilayilia sighed, not bothering to correct him as he rattled off more instructions for Petunia.

The woman sat in the corner, nursing a glass of wine Homas had provided. The room had come cheap, but Ilayilia was quickly running out of the funds Glarlauk had given her. She would not be able to stay a second night at the Cat and Mouse.

Other hobbits began to wander in. Most of them looked young, sons of villagers or hired workers coming in for dinner and a pint. Ilayilia sat quietly in the corner and ordered the special, steak and kidney pie with roast vegetables. While supper had been a fairly quiet affair, the after-dinner drink was not.

Clearly the tavern was the place to be in the village of Willowbottom. Hobbits poured in through the doors for drinks and song while other sat outside smoking long pipes with relish. She sniffed appreciatively; she herself did not smoke but the fragrance brought back memories of Kalkas.

Four hobbits were setting up a few low stools and instruments in an area Homas had cleared that afternoon. There was a fiddler and a flautist who were tuning their instruments. Ilayilia also saw a hobbit with a strange frame drum that had a goatskin stretched across one side. The final hobbit appeared to be the singer of the group, as he was swinging down water instead of spirits.

The room did not hush as the band began to play, but rather grew louder. It seemed that all the hobbits knew the words of the first song and joined in with gusto while Ilayilia listened.

"Oh, you can search far and wide

You can drink the whole town dry

But you'll never find a beer so brown

As the one we drink in our home town

You can keep your fancy ales.

Keep your fine drinking house

But the only brew for the brave and true...

Comes from Cat and Mouse!"

The patrons held the note on 'true' for as long as they could, making Ilayilia believe there was some sort of contest to see who could go the longest. The last line was shouted and everyone raised their glasses in a salute to Homas. Ilayilia smiled and lifted hers as well.

The band fell to playing fast, merry jigs and many hobbits there rose to show off their fancy footwork. The woman smiled to see the younger hobbits casting hopeful looks at members of the opposite sex as they danced. In one slower dance a few of the younger ones paired off together and whirled around the room.

It was during this that Gurfa walked in with his two sons. They went to the bar and ordered a half-pint for each of them. One of the boys had his eye on a pretty maid with golden hair and a quick smile. His brother saw and, with an evil grin, pushed the younger boy towards the girl. Gurfa smiled when he caught sight of Ilayilia and he wove across the room to join her.

"Young uns," the hobbit laughed, sitting down next to her. "To be able to court a girl once more! I met my Myrtle at a ceilidh down at the Old Swan Pub in Tooktown. She had pink ribbons and peonies in her hair, I can still remember."

"The Old Swan?" Ilayilia asked, watching Gurfa's youngest son blush and clumsily flirt with the pretty girl.

"That was the pub in Tooktown, used to have quite a rivalry with this place," he told her. Then, leaning forward and pretending to whisper, "Some of us still support the Swan."

"Us?" Ilayilia copied his tone.

"Aye, I'm not the only one what moved to Willowbottom after... well, you saw," Gurfa said, taking a swig of his ale.

"Where did the others go?"

"A few went to Pincup," the hobbit recalled, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "A couple went to live with family. Most went to Tuckborough, though tis farther away. It's the biggest Took settlement, see?"

Ilayilia fell silent, watching the hobbits start another dance.

"What is that one called?" she asked, inclining her head towards the dance floor.

"Rant step," Gurfa told her. "Me and me Myrtle could cut quite a rug with that one!" Ilayilia watched, intrigued by the odd steps: hop on the left twice, step on right, hop on right twice, step on left.

"I've never seen such dancing!" she said, shaking her head.

"Do you dance, then?" one of the hobbits she recognized from lunch had come over.

"This is Ivo Took," Gurfa introduced the dark haired, blue eyed hobbit. "Ivo, this is Miss Ilayla." Ilayilia ignored the mispronunciation and shook Ivo's hand.

"Not much, Master Ivo," she admitted. "But my husband used to be quite the dancer."

"Well come on then!" Ivo said, grabbing her hand with a rakish smile. "You can't go to a ceilidh and not dance!" Despite her protests, the hobbit dragged her from the tavern and into the night where the smokers sat. Not a few hobbits followed them outside to watch.

Ivo took her hand as the band began to play. It was a fast jig and the steps Ivo led her on were fast so that Ilayilia was soon breathless with laughter. The other hobbits clapped her on and Ivo let go of her hand, allowing her to spin into Gurfa's arms. She danced a few steps with him and then was passed on to another.

Finally the music stopped and the hobbits and Ilayilia applauded the band.

"See, we made a dancer of you yet!" Ivo laughed, sitting down with Gurfa and Ilayilia at their corner table. A few other hobbits joined them, including the singer in the band. During his break he indulged in an ale and he drank this as he joined in the conversation.

"Where's your brother tonight?" the singer asked Ivo, clapping Gurfa on the back.

"With uncle, again!" Ivo rolled his eyes. "That old hobbit's cracked!"

"You mind your tongue!" Gurfa snapped, looking truly angry. A few of the other hobbits shifted uncomfortably.

"You can't possibly believe that old coot's story!" Ivo scoffed. "Elves, dwarves, ponies, giants?"

"Shut up!" Gurfa snarled, his hold on the pint tightening. "You've no idea what he's been through! Losing his home like that!"

"Better mad than disreputable," another hobbit muttered into his beer. "What if he was telling the truth? The indecency! Just like a Took..." Gurfa and Ivo rose to their feet with indignant cries.

"Excuse me," Ilayilia interrupted, her voice soft and gentle. "But who, exactly, are we talking about?"

"Higgen Took." The name hit her hard, punching the air from her stomach. Sending the other hobbits away, Gurfa sat down and began to tell her the story.

"So, it's like this, see. Higgen used to live in Tooktown, quite a respectable fellow, too. Only when whatever happened happened, it got his crops first. Just when everything was at its low point in that spring, Higgen ups and vanishes. Didn't see him again for about a year!

Well, he come back eventually. By then, we'd just about all left Tooktown. No one knows just what happened, but most folks think seeing his home all boarded up and abandoned just broke something inside him.

When folks asked where he'd been he'd just babble some cock-and-bull story about being off adventuring. Well most people, like young Ivo, thought he was mad. Off his rocker. Then again, being mad is considered a better option than if people actually thought he _did_ go off adventuring! Highly disreputable, adventuring is.

But he's a Took, and we Tooks are considered a little reckless. That's another story: Willowbottom used to be a Brandybuck town until we Tooks moved in. There's more than just an old pub rivalry going on between the Tooks and the Brandybucks. So we set Higgen up with his sister and he's lived there since. Young Ivo and his brother are Higgen's nephews."

A/N: Yes, I know that these lyrics are from the Green Dragon Pub. But I couldn't think up a, ahem, respectable pub song.


	28. Tooktown

**Tooktown**

The next morning, Ilayilia paid for a small breakfast of porridge and bid Homas goodbye.

"Sure I can't interest you for one more night?" he asked. "Petunia's making her famous shepherd's pie."

"Thank you," the woman smiled. "But I've a friend waiting for me." Leaving the Cat and Mouse, she went to Gurfa's farm. He and his sons were already up and at work. The hobbit was happy to give her directions to Higgen's house.

She came at last to the round green door and bent down to knock. A woman with Ivo's sky blue eyes opened the door, wiping flour from her hands.

"I'm looking for a Mr. Higgen Took and I was told I could find him here," Ilayilia told the hobbit. She was ushered into the house and offered something called "second breakfast", which she politely declined. Ivo's mother went through one of the doors and came back with a middle-aged hobbit leaning on her arm.

"You just sit down there, brother," she said, guiding him to a chair. Ilayilia sat down opposite Higgen at the round dining table and looked the hobbit over. He had ruddy brown hair and bright hazel eyes that gazed steadily back at her. When his sister had left, Ilayilia leant forward and rested her hands on the table.

"Higgen, my name is Ilayilia." The hobbit's eyes widened and his hands shot forward to grab her own.

"I knew it!" Higgen hissed triumphantly. "As soon as I saw you!"

"You knew my brother, didn't you?"

"Did I? Oh, who _really_ knew Anduin? But yes, I met him," the hobbit spoke in a rapid manner, as though afraid someone would try and stop him. "And loved him as a friend, for my part. Not like Eliohad, of course."

"Eliohad?" Ilayilia frowned, for she knew from Elrond that the Elf had accompanied Anduin on many of his travels and she knew from Glorfindel that his son had loved Anduin. But how did the hobbit know...?

"Yes, I never could compete with Eliohad," the hobbit continued. "Silly of me to try, really. Anduin and he had something much more than friendship... Eliohad took it badly, so badly. He left to cross the Sea after Anduin... after..." Higgen broke down into tears. Ilayilia could see why many thought the hobbit mad, for his sentences were almost incoherent unless your knew what he was talking about.

"Higgen," she said firmly, meeting the hobbit's eyes. "I came to the Shire for a reason. I came to try and save Tooktown." Higgen stopped crying and looked up at her in wonder.

"Tooktown's dead," he whispered.

"I know. I've seen it," she told him. "But maybe, together, we could bring it back."

Ilayilia took Higgen from his sister's house and placed him in the care of Gurfa, who was gentle and understanding. Then she returned to the Eastern end of the Shire and searched for Glarlauk. The dragon was where she had left him, though he had been extremely worried by her absence. Ilayilia explained that she would be away for a couple of days, but promised to come back soon.

She returned to Gurfa's house by nightfall and the woman and two hobbits stayed up long into the night discussing Tooktown as it had been and as it was now.

Over the next week, Ilayilia set about restoring Tooktown. Soon Gurfa, his two sons, Higgen, Ivo and his brother, and all of the Tooks that had taken up residence in Willowbottom came to aid her. They cleared the fields of all plants, weeds and former crops alike. Then Ilayilia produced the box of soil Galadriel had given her.

By sprinkling just a pinch on each field, the dirt became richer and moister. Worms, driven away by drought, returned to the soil and began to burrow through the thick, nutritious earth.

When news of this reached Pincup and Tuckborough, more and more hobbits came to help. They began to repair homes and tend forgotten gardens. Working together, Tooktown began to emerge from a pile of debris and ruin. Ilayilia helped in whatever way she could, but when the week was over she was gone.

Only Higgen and Gurfa had seen her go: to the latter she had entrusted the soil of Lorien and warned him never to use to much, for that could be worse than using too little.

It took all of that autumn and most of the next year to bring Tooktown back to its former glory. The Old Swan Pub was reopened the following winter in celebration and Gurfa Took was declared mayor in that same ceremony.

Higgen lived out his life in solitude, content never to marry. He never again spoke of his adventures, save to entertain young hobbits. Indeed, he seemed saner than ever to all of his neighbors, many of whom apologized to him. In his old age, Higgen became increasingly closer to his nephew, Bilbo Baggins, and it was to him alone that the elderly hobbit left his inheritance. A small one, too, it was, consisting only of a few pieces of Elvish clothing and a silvery-blue bag containing pockets upon pockets of dried herbs.


	29. The Final Battle

**The Final Battle**

Ilayilia and Glarlauk turned back to the North. Ilayilia could sense Glarlauk was worried and one morning before they took off she plucked up her courage and asked him why.

"Because I have left my gold so long," the black dragon said, clawing a tree to ribbons in his anxiety. "Any one could come and take it."

"Any one? That cave is impossible to get to!"

"Not for a rival dragon," Glarlauk said, his eyes deep purple with concern. "And there are more than a few of those in the north." He finished shredding the tree and looked down at it blankly, unaware of what his claws had been doing. Ilayilia touched the dragon's side gently.

"I'm sorry I made you leave your home," she said softly. Glarlauk blinked, forcing his eyes from purple to golden calm.

"There's no need to be sorry," he assured her. "Now that this is all over, your voice belongs to me."

"Yes, it does!" she laughed, but an image of Kalkas and their son flashed across her mind. "Well, my lord, do you wish for a song?" Ilayilia dipped a mocking curtsey. Glarlauk's laugh rumbled and he placed his claws gently around her.

"Not now," he told her. "Now I just want to go home."

When they finally arrived within sight of the mountains of Nargothrond, however, Glarlauk stopped in the forest beneath their shadows. He set Ilayilia down and looked up at the distant cave with concern.

"Is something wrong?" she whispered fearfully. Glarlauk took deep breaths, smelling for other dragons.

"Someone was here," he growled. "I can smell her, a scent like molten glass and trickery."

"Another dragon?"

"A female," Glarlauk snarled, looking towards the mountain. "Recently. Maybe still there. Stay here." He ordered, snapping open his black wings and soaring towards his cave with a mighty roar of challenge. Ilayilia closed her eyes as the bellowing resounded; she could not be sure if it was his own call echoing off the mountainside or the answer of the female thief.

But when she opened her eyes again, Glarlauk was climbing into his cave. There was no sound of a fight.

The woman looked at her surroundings. Glarlauk had left her on a fairly open space, the Talath Dirnen, or Guarded Plain as the Elves had once called it. The ground was rocky but empty of the trees that pressed in around it. Once, in the first wars, this had been an outpost of the Elven rangers who guarded this plain. Now there was nothing, just bare rock. Not even a few loose stones.

There was, however, a sound. Ilayilia listened, a small frown on her face, to the hoofbeats that grew steadily louder and closer. A white form flickered in and out of sight between the trees.

At first the woman thought she was looking at a white stag, so gracefully and swiftly did the creature bound. But as it drew closer Ilayilia realized that it did not have antlers, but rather a twilight grey mane. And then it whinnied.

"Brassen?" she asked, stunned. The horse neighed again. Over the past year, Brassen had grown into a fine colt, with thin long legs and a beautiful shining coat. And on his back...

"Kalkas?" Ilayilia asked, and then she was running. The man jumped from Brassen and swept her up into a bone-crushing hug. He stroked her black hair and sobbed into it. Ilayilia held herself close to him and her own tears wet the front of his tunic.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Kalkas whispered, holding her at arm's length and looking over her.

"Nor I you," she admitted. He looked older, somehow, and the short beard he had grown only made him look thinner. The woman could tell her husband was looking over her for any hurts.

"How did you escape?" Kalkas asked, embracing her once more.

"Escape?" Now it was her turn to push him away. Her eyes became more guarded and sorrowful. "I didn't escape, Kalkas."

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused and slightly suspicious.

"Glarlauk... the dragon, that is... he... well, he owns me," Ilayilia whispered. "He's only gone for a little bit..."

"Then we must hurry," Kalkas interrupted, seizing her wrist and dragging her to where Brassen stood, pawing the ground impatiently.

"You don't understand!" Ilayilia tried again, dragging her feet and looking back over her shoulder. "I don't want to leave him!" Kalkas did not let go, but he stopped and looked at her. Ilayilia flinched to see the hurt in his eyes.

Suddenly a roar tore the air in two. Brassen screamed and bucked as Glarlauk soared overhead, his leathery black wings beating the air. The dragon unleashed a fiery breath towards the sky as he folded his wings and landed with a thud. His eyes burned crimson as he saw Kalkas' hand gripping Ilayilia's wrist.

"GET. AWAY. FROM. MY. TWO-LEG!" the dragon roared, swishing his tail menacingly.

"Glarlauk, please!" Ilayilia shouted, breaking free from Kalkas' hold and running toward the dragon, arms outstretched. Glarlauk's tail slammed around and pushed her out of the way. "Glarlauk!" she shrieked in fear and desperation.

The dragon roared and spat fire. From the edge of her vision, Ilayilia could see Kalkas draw a sword and point it at Glarlauk. Wiggling out from the dragon's tail, the woman once again tried to stop them.

"PLEASE! Don't hurt him!" she screamed, not really sure which 'him' she was referring to. But when each one prepared to make his first move, Ilayilia dove between them.

Kalkas could not stop his sword, already mid-swing, in time. It continued its singing arc and struck his wife deep in the side. Glarlauk had raised a heavy claw to swipe the man, but instead knocked Ilayilia flying. She was thrown through the air and hit the rocky ground with a thud. The woman lay there, crumpled and unmoving.

"Ilayilia!" Glarlauk wailed, turning toward her.

"You killed her!" Kalkas shouted, his eyes wide and afraid. He lunged again with his sword and slashed across Glarlauk's exposed neck. The dragon turned with a snarl and lifted his claws for another swipe.

Kalkas dove out of the way and the dragon's claws raked, instead, upon Brassen. The horse screeched and fell as his side was slashed open brutally.

The man stumbled, slightly, caught off balance. Glarlauk snapped his teeth, nearly biting off Kalkas' arm. With another wild swing, the man succeeded in stabbing the dragon's open mouth.

Glarlauk reared, roaring in agony as blood poured into his mouth. Kalkas ran forward and, both hands clutching the sword, plunged the blade deep into Glarlauk's thick hide.

WIth a wail, the dragon fell onto his side. But Kalkas was not victorious, for as he fell Glarlauk lashed out and killed the man.

The black dragon lay on his side, his breath rattling in his throat and blood bubbling slightly from his mouth. His tail slowly twitched around and tenderly turned Ilayilia over. The woman was clutching her side, and darkness filled her mind and heart.

"No," Glarlauk choked, realizing how close death was to the woman. The dragon abruptly realized that someone else was breathing close by. His silver eye flickered to the male two-leg, but he was dead. Then he caught sight of the white horse. Brassen was barely clinging to life, his eyes wide and terrified.

"You loved her, didn't you?" the dragon asked, watching how the horse's eyes flickered to where Ilayilia lay dying. "Would you save her?"

Brassen met the dragon's eye and nodded imperceptibly. Glarlauk wheezed slightly at first, but his voice finally found the melody.

_Hereafter, in a better world that this, _

_I shall desire more love and knowledge of you._

As he sang, Brassen closed his eyes and began to breathe steadily and deeply. Ilayilia matched his breathing until they exhaled and inhaled in perfect harmony. Then Brassen's breath slowed and faltered as the horse's life left him. The blood spilt from his side flowed across the rock and seeped into Ilayilia's hurt side. As Glarlauk's last note pierced the air, Ilayilia woke suddenly.

Her side had stopped bleeding and her body, once broken, had repaired and knitted itself together. For a second, her eyes flashed brown, but when she looked upon Glarlauk the change was gone. Dragging her weakened body across the rock she came to the dragon.

"Am I... beautiful?" Glarlauk asked, panting.

"More beautiful than ever I saw you," Ilayilia whispered, her tears running off the dragon's smooth scales. Glarlauk sighed and she watched as the silver in his eyes leeched away and a smooth, pupil-less black spread over them. The dragon's breath rumbled one last time and then his black eyes were empty.

"Goodbye, dearest friend," she said, stroking his cheek.

Author's contest: Who and where are the quotes in the above passage from? (Hint: there are two allusions I am referring to, bonus points if you get the second one right!)


	30. Cruel is the Life of the Woman!

A/N: "Cruel is the Life of the Woman" is mine, etc. etc., blah blah blah.

**Cruel is the Life of the Woman!**

When Ilayilia finally found enough strength to stand something felt very different. She felt taller, stronger, and faster. Smells and sounds seemed magnified and she suddenly was startled by the reptilian smell of Glarlauk. She tossed her mane in disgust... and froze.

For Ilayilia was cloaked in the image of a horse. She was a tall, cream colored mare with a long yellow mane. Underneath this, Ilayilia could still feel a connection to herself and her own, human conscious, but there were also horse-like instincts.

"What have you done to me?" she asked, horrified as she looked over her new body. But as she did the image faded and she was once again the black-haired, blue-eyed woman. "What did you sing?" she yelled, frightened.

But when Ilayilia allowed that strong emotion to wash over her, she was completely given over to the pale mare, and she fled the blood-soaked clearing, running as though to escape the horrors she had seen.

For weeks she wandered, flickering in and out of the horse form. One day as she wandered a range of hills, she smelled other horses. No, they were ponies. Her ears pricked up and she trotted forward curiously.

A herd of very familiar ponies milled around in the valley below. A young boy, not more than eleven years old, rode on one of the ponies. Ilayilia watched as the human-child struggled to round up the ponies. He was very good at it, clucking and speaking in a strange, lilting tongue.

The boy had dark, nearly black, hair and when he turned his pony she saw bright blue eyes shine out of his face. Ilayilia started and the horse's form melted away as she recognized the boy. How could she not have seen? How could she have been so lost in the horse's body as to not recognize her son?

"Falkas!" she shouted, running down the hill. The boy looked up, startled. His face lit with surprise and delight as he turned his pony and kicked it into a gallop. They ran towards each other, laughing in breathless exhilaration. Ilayilia ran forward and pulled him off his pony, hugging him tightly. The boy returned the embrace fiercely.

"Emel!" (_Mother!_) he sobbed, burying his face in her feather tunic. She had forgotten that she had been wearing it that fateful day. "Gulle tolo enni!" (_I knew you'd come for me_).

"I never left," Ilayilia soothed him, running her fingers through his dark hair. Falkas looked up and glanced behind his mother expectantly.

"Where is ada?" (_father_) he asked. Ilayilia felt her heart drop a little.

"I'm sorry, little one," she whispered. Falkas' eyes filled with understanding and sadness.

"I _told _him," the boy insisted. "I _told _him, but he wouldn't listen."

"Shh, now, it's not your fault," Ilayilia told her son gently, wiping a stray tear from the boy's cheek. Looking over the ponies, who were watching the reunion with grave intelligence, she smiled to see so many familiar faces.

"Did you do this by yourself?" she asked, gesturing to the herd.

"Yes," the boy replied proudly. "I was going to take them south and try and sell them, like grandfather used to."

"I think," Ilayilia mused. "That that is a wonderful idea."

So for many years Ilayilia and her son Falkas drove the herds of Rhaw Nur south. Ilayilia made certain that the Shire was always one of their stops, and occasionally they visited Rivendell, too. The Elves, however, had little need of the sturdy, wild northern ponies, having their own fleet footed steeds.

But there was a sickness and a sorrow in Ilayilia's heart. Sometimes at night she would wander among the herds in the body of a pale, cream mare with long yellow hair. Other times she would look towards the distant mountains of Nargothrond with sadness and longing in her heart.

When Falkas came to manhood it became known that he had inherited his mother's shape-shifting ability, though he was only able to hold a horse's form for brief spurts of time, and never at his own wish. Ilayilia left him alone more and more often. She constantly sought out the boarders of Ossiriand, the Northern Kingdom of the Wood-Elves.

On one day, she sat in human form just outside the forest. For some reason, the trees filled her with a great longing but she was afraid to go into them. Instead she sat on the boarders of the wood and sang to an eagle who flew overhead.

"There is a sadness in this land

A bitterness never to cease

Cruel is the life of a woman!

To live beyond all that she loved.

A bitter cup is her life wine

Bitter as winter and ice lands

What path may she follow, what line

To find all that she had once lost?"

Ilayilia blinked back tears, looking up when she felt eyes upon her. There, in the shelter of the trees, stood two children. They were fair and angelic, with long dark hair and bright grey eyes.

"U'nalla, firiath," (_Do not cry, mortal_) one of the elflings said. "U'baurle hamp alnedh. Tolo min, tolo min." (_You needn't sit outside. Come in, come in_.) Ilayilia stood without thinking and came to stand next to the elf child.

"Ai le?" (_Who are you?_) she asked in wonderment. The two girls giggled. One, the smaller one who had not spoken yet, answered her.

"Im Caleyn, sen gwathel nin Nellas," (_I am Caleyn, this is my sister Nellas_) the child told her. "Amin meleth conath." (_We enjoy your voice_).

"Hanno lle,"(_Thank you_) Ilayilia smiled.

"Innasle tangado amin?" (_Will you teach us?_) the taller one, Nellas asked.

"Ned rant," (_Of course_) she promised.


	31. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

So it was the Ilayilia came to live with the Wood-Elves or, as they are sometimes known, the Wild-Elves, the Green-Elves, or even the Dark-Elves. Nellas and Caleyn were apprenticed to her until they could sing almost as fair as she.

But one day the two Elven sisters wandered to close to the edge of the forest. They were attacked by wargs far from the protection of any Elf patrols. Ilayilia, worried by the absence of her students, took to her horse form and went after them. Finding the sisters, she carried them home upon her back.

Though the Elven healers saved the two girls, Nellas and Caleyn had been so frightened that they almost lost the power of speech. Caleyn never spoke again, and Nellas would speak only in the most desperate of times. But Ilayilia taught them to sing again, and this became the sisters' main form of communication.

It is not known precisely when, but Ilayilia did die, as mortals must. She was buried in the woods of Ossiriand and if one was able to find their way far into the woods they would find her tombstone.

It was a simple slab of rock, covered thickly with moss and ivy, for that is how the Green-Elves desire their graves to be. But a small carving lay open to the elements and it read thus:

ILAYILIA

THE LADY AEW

FRIEND OF DRAGONS

THE HALF-MARE

SHE LOVED AND LOST

MAY HER SPIRIT FIND OROME

Few among Elves and Men were allowed to visit her final resting place. Among these were the sisters Nellas and Caleyn, and the Elf Lord Glorfindel. Falkas never knew where his mother lay.

Falkas did, however, pass on the stories his mother told him. So it was that the tale of Anduin the Valiant was never lost among his descendants, nor among the Rhaw Nur, his people. The Seal of Calenor, the Ring of Anduin, and the Trumpet of Ilayilia were passed from father to son along with the stories.

Of all in the line of Calenor, it was said that Falenor, the great-grandson of Ilayilia, looked the most like Ilayilia. He was also gifted with her voice and the magical heritage of blood given to Ilayilia by Glarlauk.


End file.
